The quickie mart was vacant of either Joe or Emma and the store clerk was rather startled as Mike watched another agent interrogate him.
"They got some gas, picked up a few groceries, and then they left." Mike heard the clerk mutter.
Mike sighed as he looked out into the spacious parking lot when he spotted Ryan with a cup of coffee in his hands standing off in the distance of the parking lot; Mike walked out of the mart and approached Ryan with full force.
"What are you doing here?" Mike asked.
Ryan shrugged "Just checking in…I heard Sarah and Grace skipped town." He said before taking a sip of his coffee.
Mike shook his head "No, Donovan put them in protective custody…"
"I bet that hurt." Ryan muttered.
Mike shrugged "Sarah put things into perspective for me." He told Ryan.
Ryan nodded "It's probably for the best, but don't worry—they'll be back, just give it time." He said.
"I know. I just didn't want it to come to this. For some reason, I wanted to believe it would be easy to snatch both Emma and Joe since they were flying close enough to the radar, y'know?" Mike asked rhetorically.
Ryan smirked "Yeah, I know, wishful thinking, huh?" he asked.
"Yeah." Mike said, taking a breather when he felt his cell phone beginning to vibrate in his pocket.
He looked down at the number, being told that the number was unknown but in his line of work, a lot of numbers were unknown as he answered it "This is Weston." He said, turning away from Ryan.
"Agent Weston, nice to hear your voice again." Joe said.
Mike swallowed hard, turning to Agent Donovan who was going over tasks with other agents "Joe, what a pleasant surprise." He said.
Those words caught Ryans' attention as he grabbed Mikes' arm, but he pulled it away as he continued to walk a distance away from him.
"Y'know, I went by the house and Sarah and Grace weren't there…but Sarahs' beetle was in the driveway." Joe remarked, opening the comment up for a question.
Mike smirked "You'll never find them."
"You took my favorite girls away." Joe remarked.
"They're not your girls, Joe." Mike said.
Joe chuckled on the other end "Fine, my leverage…you took my leverage away. Why would you do such a thing? I was actually stating to enjoy the Chronicles of the Weston house."
Mike turned around to find Ryan approaching Agent Donovan, pointing to Mike as he focused back on the conversation "You know why. It's amazing what you'll do for your child…you know that, don't you Joe? Oh, wait…" he trailed off.
"I'll find them, one way or another, Michael…you know I will." Joe hissed.
Mike smirked "Yeah, and even if you do I'm sure Sarah will put up quite a fight, hell, I bet Grace gets a shot or two in. After all, she does take after her mother." He quipped.
"That she does, Michael that she does." Joe remarked before hanging up the phone.
Mike muttered a curse before looking up to seeing both Donovan and Ryan disappear within the crowd of agents, he spun around for a moment before he finally spotted them.
Donovan huffed, his hands on his hips while Ryan threw his coffee mug away in frustration; it was obvious by their reactions that they weren't able to track the call which frustrated Mike as well.
It seemed like no matter what they did, Joe always slipped past their fingers; Mike wasn't sure what to do as he watched Donovan approach him "Well, what did he say?" he asked.
"Same old, same old…he's kind of angry that Sarah and Grace are in protective custody—and he threatened that he would find them one way or another." Mike said.
Donovan nodded "Don't worry, they'll be fine. Joe won't get to them." He assured Mike.
Mike smirked "I'm not worry about them, I'm just afraid we're going to get a call saying that Sarah tied Joe by his toes and gutted him or something like that." He confessed.
Donovan cocked an eye brow at him, Mike shrugged "She's a tiny thing, but she can stand on her own in a fight." He said, sticking up for Sarah.
"I'm going to pretend that I didn't hear any of that, and walk away." Donovan said, backing up slowly before turning around and walking towards another set of agents.
He heard chuckling coming up from behind him as Ryan patted his shoulder "I've never seen him creeped out before." Ryan confessed.
"Well, there's a first time for everything, isn't there?" Mike said before walking away from his spot.
He read through the list again and again before looking up and staring at a white wall to let his eyes relax before he gave himself a headache.
Mike felt as though he was going in circles with the entire case, nothing at the grocery store indicated anything sinister but the fact that Joe Carroll and Emma Hill stopped at a gas station and bought junk food was unusual.
"I didn't know Joe ate junk food." Mike thought to himself.
But Mike shook the thought away, it didn't matter; Mike had a theory about the whole thing where they bought more food for a stake out at the house, but once they realized Sarah and Grace were gone it became a moot point for the both of them.
Mike knew Joe would make an effort to find Sarah and Grace, but he trusted in the FBI to keep the both of them safe, even if it meant locking them away in a secluded house for days on end.
He stood up from his seat, exiting his office and beginning to walk around to see what everyone else was up to, which wasn't much since the two serial killers had become decent at hiding from surveillance cameras lately and nobody could track them down.
Mike started to wonder what Sarah and Grace were doing, and if they were alright or if they were tired or something along those lines; he took a deep breathe in, knowing that thinking about them would cloud his judgment.
He tried hard to push them away in his mind, but it was becoming distracting when an agent jumped up in his seat and announced that he had found something "Perfect timing!" Mike thought.