Essential listening – Help I'm Alive, by Metric
0o0
Dostoyevsky once said, "Nothing is easier than denouncing the evildoer. Nothing more difficult than understanding him."
0o0
Time was moving so quickly. It was one of those days where it seemed to speed up and slow down of its own accord. An illusion of how tense they all were. The laws of physics couldn't be ignored so easily, no matter what Grace seemed to think.
For a moment he wondered whether the rules might change in a place so full of people whose spirits were all so taut with expectation or fear, like a football stadium, or a school exam room. There were many theories about how far the human mind could influence its surroundings, and if all of them were focussed on the same thing at once.
Spencer frowned, aware that he was in danger of getting caught up in a metaphysical argument in his own head. He had to focus.
Morgan was escorting their victim's cousin over to one of the mall offices that could be pressed into service as an interrogation room. It had just the right amount of formality to it, which was good. They didn't want to frighten Jeremy. Not yet.
It had been Emily's idea to separate him from his parents, both of whom were in such a state of distress right now that it was impossible to hold a meaningful conversation with the boy. As the last person to spend time with Katie before her abduction, they badly needed to have that conversation.
Spencer gave the kid a worried smile as Morgan escorted him through the door; he already had a sort of wide-eyed look of panic about him. Guilt, Spencer guessed, about not keeping a better watch over his cousin.
He waited until Jeremy settled before beginning.
"Jeremy, we asked your Mom and Dad if we could talk privately," he said. "Thought it might be easier that way."
"'Cause my dad thinks this is my fault."
Spencer didn't miss the tone of resentment; Jeremy was a smart kid – probably smarter than his dad realised. He was only thirteen – he didn't need this hanging over him for the rest of his life. That kind of guilt could really screw a person up.
"No," said Spencer. "Jeremy, your dad is just super upset right now, because at times like this people get really emotional."
He doesn't mean it, he added, privately.
Jeremy shot him a shrewd look that told him both that he didn't believe a word of it and that he had appreciated the effort. The subject was clearly making him uncomfortable, though, and he withdrew behind his hair when Morgan crouched down beside him.
"Hey kid," Morgan said, making him look up and make eye contact. "The moments right before a kidnappin' like this are the most important. You gotta understood that you're the only one who can help us with that."
Jeremy looked earnest, but worried. It was a lot of weight to thrust on a young kid's shoulders.
"But – but I can't remember –" he began.
Spencer cut him off.
"Jeremy, all we need," he said, leaving forward, "is the last thing Katie did or said before she was gone."
He frowned. His words were having an unexpected effect on the boy, who was shaking his head, fearfully. Tears sprung to Jeremy's eyes and he got to his feet.
"Jeremy?" Morgan asked, sharing a look of concern with Spencer. "Jeremy?"
The boy clutched at his chest; his breathing was shallow and coming in gasps now. Did Jeremy have asthma, like his cousin? Morgan grabbed his shoulder.
"What? What? What?" Morgan asked, urgently. "What is it? Talk to me! What?"
"Can't breathe –" Jeremy managed.
"Uh – uh, you're – you're having a panic attack," Spencer told him, taking his other shoulder. "Sit down –"
"Jeremy, sit down," said Morgan, more gently, guiding him back to his seat. "Sit down. Okay. Watch it. Put your head between your knees, put your head between your knees. That's right," he said, holding the boy in place. "Just breathe. Just breathe."
He met Spencer's eyes, alarmed.
Jeremy knew something about Katie's disappearance, that was for sure – but what?
0o0
"Yeah, they're just coming now," Grace said, into her mobile. "Five minutes…"
She listened for a moment as JJ relayed what information she could. They weren't getting anywhere. She started moving again while she listened, keeping pace with Delta team as they searched every nook and cranny, hollering the little girl's name.
"Right," she said. "Okay. Hey, JJ? Can you get something of Katie's for when the search dogs get here?"
She heard the wince in JJ's voice as she hung up.
Grace did not envy her that task.
0o0
Extracting the sweater from Beth Jacobs had been less traumatic than JJ had expected. No one needs to hear that their best shot at finding their daughter is a K9 unit, especially when that sweater was their only tangible link to her right now.
They'd taken the decision to run an appeal over the speakers pretty well, too, though she could tell they were both terrified. She could almost feel it coursing through them as she watched Garcia setting up. It would help them to be doing something.
Mr Jacobs had deferred the dubious honour of the speech to his wife, perhaps recognising that he was likely to lose his cool over the tannoy and potentially put his daughter in more danger. JJ was privately quite relieved. She would have had to ask him to stay silent in any case – the UnSub was more likely to listen to a female voice.
Beth Jacobs was steeling herself, now she had a task to perform, a way to try to help her daughter, she was calmer.
"Do you have kids?" she asked, catching JJ off guard.
She was looking for common ground, she realised, trying to make this feel more normal, more manageable. Beginning to put her trust in these people who she'd never met.
"No, not yet," JJ told her. She could feel both parents watching her, wondering how she could ever understand. "But everyone that needs us – we think of as our own."
They both nodded slightly, reassured that the team would do their best for their child. JJ glanced at her watch, hoping that their best would go a little faster. It was already dark outside. Without her inhaler, Katie Jacobs didn't have that kind of time.
"I don't know if I can do this," Mrs Jacobs shook her head, fearful.
"Okay," said JJ, as Mr Jacobs touched his wife's face – a tiny gesture of affection that gave her the strength she would need. They were in this together. "Just stay calm. Don't address what he's done, that'll only make him defensive."
Garcia tapped her on the shoulder.
"Jayj, I'm ready."
"Just," she paused, gently moving Beth Jacobs forward. "Keep the focus on Katie, right? We need him to hear who she is. No one knows that better than you."
She watched the woman collect herself.
0o0
The loud speakers burst into life as Delta team moved into the ground floor. It was a woman's voice, quiet and afraid. For a moment it held them all in place, listening to a mother's anguish.
"My name is Beth Jacobs. Forty-five minutes ago, our daughter Katie went missing. She's only six years old. Last month she started first grade."
Grace turned her face away from the others, looking out across the eerie stillness of the mall. At the end of the walkway they were on, a single balloon drifted peacefully over a children's play area, devoid of life. She stared at the airy thing, hanging in the air like a lost soul.
"Katie is our only child and we love her very much. We just want her back safe."
Where are you, baby?
"The other day, Katie told me that she was ready to ride –" Mrs Jacobs' voice hitched and Grace's heart gave a squeeze "– a big girl's bike." She could hear the woman's tears now. "Without training wheels. And I promised her that she could do that on her birthday."
She sobbed and Grace clapped her hands together.
"Come on," she said, to Agent Summers. "Let's keep moving."
Someone's got to bring her little girl back.
"Please, wherever you are," Beth Jacobs pleaded, as the team began to search the Taco Bell. "I hope you're listening. We just want our daughter – back to us safely. Katie is just a little girl – she's just a little girl who deserves another birthday."
"Katie!"
"Katie Jacobs?"
Grace allowed herself to fall behind the group, unwilling to let them see the tears decorating her own cheeks. She scrubbed them away, angrily. There was no time for that, now. She more than understood a mother's pain, but right now somebody else's baby needed her.
0o0
Garcia had called him away from co-ordinating the search for a new titbit. He leaned over the back of her chair, hungry for any development that might help them.
"It's only seven seconds I was able to decipher," said Garcia. "But it's seven more than we had."
She clicked something with the joystick that had magically appeared on her makeshift desk.
"What are we looking at?" Hotch frowned.
"Surveillance footage I retrieved off a second camera on the first floor," she explained, changing the angle. "It shows Katie exiting the arcade, follows her movements through the crowd. She went North –"
An error message flashed up on the screen: 'UNABLE TO LOCATE MATCHING SUBJECT'.
Hotch heard himself tut.
"Until she disappears."
"For the life of me I can't work out who she was with."
"Seven seconds." Hotch shook his head.
"All the images I could find, sir –"
"That's all it takes for a child to disappear," he complained.
"If Katie was alone, the only stores in the vicinity she would be walking toward would be furniture, stationery, or bedding."
"Nothing a six year old would leave an arcade for," he said, and paused. "Unless… it wasn't a store that caught her eye."
"I once followed Todd Cortell the entire length of Silver Beach because he had a kite," said Garcia, seeing where he was going.
"The right bait might lure her away from the crowd," he said, and hurried off. They needed to speak to the kids from the arcade again.
0o0
Jeremy was calmer now, in the familiar surroundings of the arcade. After his panic attack, Spencer had been afraid that he would fear them, but happily this didn't appear to be the case. Their rapid reaction seemed, instead, to have earned them a little of his trust.
He was still holding back, but Morgan's diagnosis of an acute anxiety disorder meant they had to tread carefully. It was possible that Jeremy couldn't tell them anything because he really couldn't remember, and pushing him might do more harm than good.
"So what are you youngsters playin' these days?" Morgan asked, keeping his tone friendly, engaging.
"I like… DOA," said Jeremy, still a little self-conscious.
"DOA," Morgan repeated, and Spencer realised the other agent didn't know what it stood for. "As in 'Dead on Arrival'?"
"It's 'Dead or Alive'," said Spencer, sharing a conspiratorial grin with Jeremy.
"What do you like so much about it, Jeremy?" Morgan asked.
"The close combat," he said, with more confidence than they had yet seen. "It's all about timing, how well you know your enemies."
He's profiling them, Spencer realised.
"Plus, I'm – um," Jeremy gave them a small grin. "Really good at it."
Morgan chuckled.
"Yeah, I bet you are, kid." There was a slight, but palpable, change in atmosphere as Morgan guided the conversation towards the case. "So – uh, what was the first game that you walked to when you came in here?"
Jeremy led them straight to the great, hulking machine that was Dead or Alive. It was just as Spencer remembered it, from the few times he had frequented an arcade in his younger years, complete with the enormous plastic guns that made your hands feel far too small, and the looming zombies.
When they'd locked down the mall, security had escorted the staff out of the arcade before they could turn off any of the machines. The constantly looping animation of zombies lurching out from every shadow was still playing. Spencer could well imagine that a six year old girl might have been less than impressed by being made to watch her cousin playing this.
Morgan got Jeremy to stand in front of it, leaning his hands on the case as if he was about to play. The agents positioned themselves either side of him, where they had an unobstructed view of his face and body language.
"I'm'nna ask you to close your eyes for a minute, Jeremy," said Morgan, and the boy immediately complied. "Alright, I want you to go back to when you first walked in the arcade earlier – can you remember that?"
Spencer crossed his arms, leaning against the Dead or Alive machine. The slightest of frowns crossed Jeremy's face. He was putting himself back in the moment, doing what he could to help Katie. It was a positive sign.
"Yeah," he said.
"You're doin' great, my man," Morgan encouraged. "'kay, in your mind I want you to try and picture what it sounded like in here. Picture what it smelled like."
Jeremy swallowed, beginning to lose his awareness of the two men who were staring so intently at him.
"Was it crowded?" Morgan probed.
"It was loud," said Jeremy.
"Were the people loud, or were the sound effects loud?" Spencer asked.
"Both. Some kid was yelling at his game… so was I."
"Where was Katie?" Morgan asked.
"Right next to me." He made a movement with his right hand and Spencer glanced at the space beside him. Jeremy started chewing the inside of his mouth; Spencer frowned.
"What's making you so uncomfortable, Jeremy?"
"Katie was upset," he told them, slowly. "She was crying."
"What was she crying about?"
"I – I don't remember… I – couldn't hear."
Spencer compressed his lips together. Jeremy was obviously lying. He had a shrewd suspicion that whatever she had been crying about was his fault. Maybe she'd wanted to leave the arcade and Jeremy had said no. Whatever it was, it was weighing on him now."
"Okay," said Morgan, looming in, sensing the boy's discomfort. "Jeremy, go back to the video game," he instructed.
Jeremy's face immediately cleared; a small smile crossed his face.
"I was winning."
Morgan's mouth slid up in amusement.
"And how'd that make you feel?" he asked.
"Awesome," said Jeremy, promptly. "Proud of myself. Kind of embarrassed…" he added, and started to worry at the inside of his mouth again.
"Embarrassed? How?"
"Like… people were watching me." The worried frown that spread over Jeremy's features also took up residence on the faces of the agents either side of him.
Interesting.
"Why were you self-conscious, who was watching you?" Morgan asked, quickly.
"I could smell her shampoo," Jeremy said, almost to himself.
"Katie's?" Morgan asked. Jeremy shook her head.
"No. There was a – a girl," he said. From the way he said it, Spencer imagined that this was quite a pretty girl, maybe even a little older. "She came over…"
"Did she talk to you or to Katie?" Morgan asked.
"To me."
He even stood slightly taller when he said it. Spencer raised an eyebrow: a very pretty girl.
"She said I was good at the game, and I offered to let her play – double team – but Katie was crying and the girl went away." A sudden thought seemed to have struck him. "Katie wanted ice cream. When I looked around…" he opened his eyes. "She was gone."
"Katie was askin' for ice cream?" Morgan asked.
"Yeah," said Jeremy, who seemed surprised at his own memory. He was still holding something back, though, and that was worrying.
"Is there something else?" Spencer asked, gently.
Jeremy chewed the side of his mouth.
"No."
Spencer nodded, wondering whether he'd been this obvious at lying at Jeremy's age.
"You did good, kid."