Bob and Skylar headed back to the new headquarters, now stationed in the city. The building was high as a skyscraper, but to access it, you needed to have a certified pass, retina scan, and when you enter the building, a number of cameras will be watching you until you meet the control room. All in all, the task force kept wondering how Skylar and Marg had this much money to build this extravagant piece in record time. They kept their questions to themselves though; knowing the duo would keep it confidential.
As soon as the whole team sat down, Skylar explained what they've discovered so far, "Now that you have joined us Bob, I might as well fill you in on what we have so far, so you don't point out anything that we've already found. We have uncovered much evidence that leads us to believe that there may be a decoy sent out by the Kidnapper to steer our findings off course. The reason why I have faith in this assumption is due to the fact that we've received videos and pages with writing suggesting that there may be an imposter to this case, or an ally to the enemy. In other words, an idiot or a genius."
The chief piped in, "This is true. The pages have various codes that Skylar has solved and deciphered herself. One of the notes reads 'I will make the CEO of the TV broadcast Fox News vanish at exactly four o' clock this evening. I will show you my abilities.' We have two hours from now, until that happens on live television," he exhaled a sigh.
"When was the first time you received something like this?" the student asked.
Shuffling through the notes, Agent Sam replied, "Uh, well if you look here the date reads the 17th of January, but we got it the following day."
Bob took the papers from Sam and flipped through them, carefully choosing his words to answer with, "These messages are strange. It doesn't seem like something the Kidnapper would do. He's usually more direct in his actions, except for those notecards you showed me earlier Skylar. This guy is acting without thinking through his plans."
"Correct. I thought you might make the same conclusion I did. When Marg searched for fingerprints or any source of DNA, she didn't uncover any. This imposter is very careful and diligent with what he does that it's almost admirable. When we contacted the post offices, they couldn't trace to any source that these items came from. I assume that that must mean he personally delivered them, or a partner did so for him," Skylar shared while stretching her arms and pulling one leg up to her chest.
"What about the security cameras?"
"No good with that either, I played back every tape that was recorded in the hotel for two nights in a row, and none of us saw anything out of the ordinary. We even did the liberty of zooming in on the guests to see what they were carrying with them."
"I have a suggestion Skylar," Josh commented. She nodded her head for him to continue, "What if we sent a message back to the sender? I realize that the packages don't have a return address on them, that's a given, but what if we placed our reply in the mailbox, do you think it would somehow get to him?"
Skylar pondered on the idea for a moment and considered it, "That's a good idea, though I'm not really sure the employees would take it to the outgoing box, if it didn't have address on it. However, what if the imposter is waiting for a response? As if he wants to be contacted?"
"Then that's a perfect idea, isn't it? If it doesn't work, then we'll just get our message back and we'll examine it for any clues," Bob answered.
"Alright the plan's settled then. We'll make a message and send it in for a response. The one who writes the message though should be Bob. Only due to the fact, that he accepted to be on this case, and I couldn't think of anyone better to carry on this task," the prodigy detective gave the smallest smirk, so only Bob would notice it.
"I know she suspects me, but how far is she going to go? I just have to calmly follow her orders and not let anything slip up. If I do, then there's only one answer, I have to get her out of my way before she can do anything." That's fine; I accept on doing my part of this case, I'm here anyways," he shrugged.
Skylar reached over to the opposite desk, "Excellent, here's a piece of paper and a pen to get you started. You may say what you believe the Kidnapper would think in this situation, and I'll review it later whenever you're done."
Bob's nerves had gone up again, because Skylar obviously planned for him to take on this position, to make the Kidnapper come running out of hiding like a little kid. She just wants to see if he would play the role well, this would only confirm her suspicions even more. He calmed himself down, picked his words carefully, and took about a half hour taking his time to cover every point. As he finished, he stretched his hands and rushed over to turn the paper into Skylar, "Here Skylar, I'm finished. See what you think."
She read it over, analyzing every word and sentence he wrote with confidence, "Actually this seems pretty decent, except please leave out the part about making me vanish. We are trying to detain the Kidnapper before that happens, remember?"
"Oh ha-ha sorry, I guess I got too much into the role," he let out a chuckle while scratching the back of his head.
"Very well. Marg if you would be so kind, please send this to the nearest post office whenever you get the chance. Also, I would like to have the incoming mail to be checked daily until we receive our reply," Skylar ordered.
Marg nodded her head and smiled, "You can trust that I will do so Skylar."
Now she turned to her suspect, "Bob, I'll have your brother bring you over whenever and if we receive a reply, for we don't know how long it will be. I won't be at the university for a few days, so no need to worry about anything over here at headquarters."
"Understood," as soon as Bob headed out of the building he began to think of his plan, "Now I have to be extra careful since this fool who calls himself the Kidnapper sent a message disclosing a silly request. What is this guy thinking anyway? Did he just send that letter as a threat? Or something more like wanting to contact the real Kidnapper to leak information? I have to make even more people vanish, and also develop a plan for when Skylar and my brother start tracing clues back to me. Which means that I'll somehow have to sneak it into the mailbox without Marg or any of the agents laying eyes on it. Tomorrow I'll stop by after class during my lunch break and carry out my plan. You won't beat me to him Skylar…"
The next day was gloomy, only very few rays of sun shined. Josh paged his brother to come over as soon as possible, after his studies that lasted all morning. He reported that Skylar wanted to have everyone over there before the broadcast would be starting, just to hear their thoughts regarding how many police officers still say they work under them for the Kidnapper case. A great majority had abandoned the case because they were afraid to put their lives on the line, especially with the Kidnapper himself.
As they were reviewing the employee bios, Marg rushed into the room, "The broadcast is starting!"
"What? I thought you said it started four in the afternoon! It's only half past two!" Sam exclaimed as they got in position in front of the large screens.
Flipping to the proper channel, as Marg had said, the news was on and streaming on the bottom was an urgent message about the Kidnapper, "We interrupt this broadcast to bring an important announcement from the Kidnapper himself!"
The tape played, obviously the voice was mixed, "Citizens of the world, I am the Kidnapper. If anyone tries to stop this message or interfere with it, I will not hesitate to kill you. I'm speaking to all of you due to that fact that I'm going to make a particular person vanish to prove to you that I am indeed the Kidnapper. In exactly thirty seconds from now, the CEO of Fox News will not be with us anymore, turn to channel five if you wish to see proof."
Skylar shouted and instructed, "Turn to channel five!"
As expected the CEO of Fox News was nowhere to be found. Fellow anchormen were screaming and hysterical, demanding if someone got it on camera. It was recorded, and shown in front of tons of people's eyes to witness the paranormal power. The Kidnapper concluded with his speech, "As you can see, I have demonstrated my powers to you. I want to prove to you that I am real and can make anyone gone when I want too, or in other words, whom I think has a purpose to be gone from this planet, forever. I always know where and who you are. Signing out."
The team was dumbstruck. Josh broke the silence, "He just wanted to brag about his powers?"
Skylar put the screen on mute, "It appears so chief. That's exactly the kind of actions I expected he'd take, considering his personality. This now confirms my suspicions of this not being the Kidnapper who he says he is. I believe he's taking orders from the real one in order to trip us up, because he's too childish to come out and show himself for a direct confrontation. He hates losing, as do I."
Bob shook his head to snap him out of his trance, "Should we still the reply to his message though? It seems kind of useless if that's all he wanted to say."
"You're right, but I assume that he will give us a direct response anyway we go about this situation. His ultimate goal with his broadcast was to contact the true Kidnapper and tell him he was an ally, and that he was not alone in this act of supposedly murdering people, since the bodies are gone with no clues. Everyone this meeting is dismissed, and I will now think about what our next move will be with the agents and Marg. Bob, would you like an escort back to your apartment?" Skylar asked politely.
He got up, stretched his back, and answered with a small smile on his face, "No thanks; I'm good. Well I guess I'll see you tomorrow if we have a reply," he said his goodbyes, yawned and headed off back to the apartment.
Skylar turned towards Josh, "Chief, I still suspect your brother of being the Kidnapper, it's about 23% now to be exact. I would advise you to keep watch on him because his reasoning abilities are almost as good as mine, that is not something we can take lightly if he is in fact, the enemy here. Being your brother, I know it may hard to grasp that order, but let's just say that it would the best for all of us here stationed at the headquarters."
He swallowed and nodded, "Right, I understand. I'll do my best, even though it will be difficult for me. You have my word Skylar."
The reason why Bob didn't have Marg escort him back to his apartment is because he was going to go ahead and start the first phase of his plan to contact this unknown person who calls himself the Kidnapper, "Now if I keep watch on where the security cameras are pointing, I'm confident enough that I can place this letter in the bin, without Skylar watching me. I'm wearing my old jacket from three years ago over a more recent one that Josh knows about, that way he won't be able to tell it's me if I have my back turned to the camera. It's going according to plan so far." Bob opened the post office door and was about to exit before he looked the man who helped in the eyes and thanked him for helping.
The mail collector replied, "Have a nice day. You're a student aren't you? Why are you out of school?"
Bob thought it was a little odd that he questioned but answered, "Oh I'm on my lunch break, and my grandmother wanted to deliver a letter for her today because she has problems with her back. You don't have to worry about my academics sir," he chuckled a little bit.
The man regained his composure, "I'm sure you have enough problems to deal with. Anyway, thank you for stopping by," he turned around and placed the mail in his messenger bag. "That was him, that was the Kidnapper, I'd knew he'd be here! I already know from research that his younger brother is the chief of the NPA; he must have valuable information pertaining to his case. And now, I have a message from him, how perfect. I'll make sure to follow his orders as planned, for I have the same goal as him," he smiled to himself.
Bob was now talking to himself out loud for there were no people to be seen on the streets due to the cold whether brewing in, "Now I just have to wait for those specific instructions he read that I wrote out for him: If zero through five people go missing in the next week, stay in the shadows and don't let the police know where you're at. Six to ten people go missing than that stands for him to go into action of our plan which is to create a scene of a decoy sending a letter back to the task force stating he would make an appearance and showing them how he does vanishings in trade for all the evidence they've uncovered so far, so they won't catch the real imposter posing as the Kidnapper. That whole plan equals to the team finding a fake handbook with non-existent instructions written into the front and back flaps. Of course the only reason I'm doing this is to have Skylar decipher wrong assumptions, but while having the clue that the Kidnapper uses a handbook to do his acts. And in the end, I'll find out Skylar's identity and make her vanish with the rest of the task force."