"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe."
― Albert Einstein
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Soren walked out of the elevator doors as soon as they opened, pushing his way past Derek and making a beeline for his desk. "Good morning to you too?" Derek chuckled. "Long night?" he asked. Soren groaned. "Don't even ask," he grumbled.
"Well, I wasn't going to," Derek smirked.
"So, don't," Soren retorted playfully, tossing a pen at Derek. The ballpoint pen hit him in the shoulder, and Derek quickly tossed it back at Soren. This time, the pen hit him in the forehead before clattering to the floor, where he grabbed it and set it back on his desk.
˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗
The BAU got called out to Potomac Mills, VA. A 6-year-old girl had gone missing with the theory that she had been kidnapped, similar to another little girl the week before.
"Jim."
Franklin gave Hotch a radio. "We've been in lockdown for 20 minutes. My team's already in motion," he told him.
Soren nodded his thanks to the man who gave him his radio and watched as the rest of the team got theirs. "Female, 6, around the same time, basically same locations." Soren listed the similarities in the two kidnappings. "I'd say it's likely the same guy." He shrugged.
"What makes you sure Katie Jacobs is still in the building?" Morgan asked Franklin.
"The mall's got cameras installed at every entrance and exit. Surveillance video confirms Katie entering the building, but no sign of her leaving," Franklin told him. "Security paged her over the intercom, and their initial sweep came up empty." He added.
"Whoever killed Jessica Davis last week left that mall with her because he wanted time with his victim in privacy," Reid pointed out.
"Assuming it's the same offender, he wouldn't stray from his M.O. He wouldn't leave here without his victim," Hotch said.
"So if Katie's still under this roof.." JJ trailed off. Soren sighed. "Then so is her abductor." He finished her thought.
"Garcia, report to the mall's security office. Reid, Morgan, I want you to find the head of security. We need all data from every search team," Hotch instructed them before turning to Prentiss, JJ, and Soren. "You three start with Katie's parents. We'll treat the mall like a neighborhood. We'll separate into areas of control."
˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗
"Katie was last seen by her cousin in the arcade about 25 minutes ago. She was wearing jeans, a green shirt, gray sneakers, and ponytails."
An officer walked up, handing off a paper to Emily. "Registered offenders located within a 45-mile radius," they told her.
˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗
"Ok, run this against current and former employees as well," she instructed, giving the paper back to the cop who nodded before walking away.
The agent handed each of them a photo. Soren looked at his copy for a few seconds, wanting to kill whoever took this innocent kid. "Ms. Jacobs' cell phone had Katie's picture on it. Mall security helped us make copies," the agent said.
"We should get this photo out to the search teams and officers but especially the other patrons. They need to know who we are looking for. Plus, seeing the photo could hopefully get people to come forward if they remember seeing anything," Soren suggested.
Emily nodded and looked at the crowd. "But the unsub could be any one of these people. We could make him panic and hurt or even kill Katie if he feels we are closing in on him," she pointed out.
"Scheiße," Soren cursed.
JJ noticed the parents walking towards them and alerted Emily and Soren. "There's her parents," he told them. "Hi. We're Agents Jareau, Soren, and Prentiss with the B.A.U. You must be Katie's aunt and uncle. This can't be easy. We're here to walk you through this," she told them.
˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗
Soren could hear the annoying noises of multiple arcade machines going off at once and the annoying flashing lights that accompanied the noise. He absolutely hated it. Not the noise; he could care less about that. It was the lights and the way nobody seemed to be around, giving the place a creepy feel since the arcade would probably be teeming with children and teens alike. The sound of various people calling out Katie's name was a bleak reminder of what was truly going on.
Emily stood beside Jeremy. His parents stood by, watching them. "So when you and your cousin were going in and out of stores, did anybody try to talk to her?" She questioned the boy.
Jeremy shook his head. "No, I don't think so," he responded.
"Did somebody maybe compliment her hair or open the door for you guys?" Emily asked.
Katie's uncle, Richard, interjected with a remark, "He wasn't exactly paying attention," he scoffed. Soren narrowed his eyes from behind his sunglasses. Richard wasn't exactly helping and honestly was just interfering with their work and getting on his nerves too.
"Yes, I was," Jeremy insisted.
Richard scoffed, obviously not believing him. "Yeah."
"You'd think after all my years in retail, I'd hate the mall, but it was convenient," Susan said.
"She was right next to me, I swear," Jeremy told them.
"And then we split up because I had to shop for my husband's birthday," Susan explained.
Richard looked down at Jeremy with a look in his eye that could only be described as annoyance or even outright hatred. "And that's when you got lost in that video game, right?" he asked his son.
"I should have stayed near the kids," Susan said.
Jeremy grumbled. "It's not fair."
Susan started to cry as she continued. "And now I wish we never left the house this morning."
Richard gave his son another look that Soren almost pointed out but shut up because this was not the time for him to start a fight with the kin of the little girl who had been kidnapped. "I'm sure that's how my brother feels too," Richard told her.
˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗
"Is that Katie's?" JJ asked.
Beth nodded. "Yeah. She didn't like it with her sneakers today. Said it didn't match."
Soren held out his hand to take the sweater. "Mind if we take this for a bit?" he asked. It was more of a statement he did his best to hide as a question.
"Why?" Beth asked him.
"For the dogs to have Katie's scent," he told her.
"Yeah, sure. Here," she complied, handing over her daughter's sweater to Soren.
"Whoever abducted Katie did so by looking at her as an object. If there's the slightest chance that he has a conscience, it may help to remind him she's not," JJ said.
"And, uh, how would you do that?"
"Well, we wouldn't. You would," JJ told her. Soren glanced at her and nodded.
˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗
"Do you have kids?" Beth asked JJ.
JJ shook her head. "No, not yet. But everyone who needs us, we think of as our own," she told her.
"I don't know if I can do this," Beth said.
"Okay, just stay calm. Don't address what he's done. That'll only make him defensive," JJ instructed.
"JJ, I'm ready."
Soren looked at Garcia, then to Beth. "Keep the focus on your daughter. If we can get him to see her as a person, it will greatly increase our odds of finding her alive," he advised.
Beth nodded solemnly and then spoke over the PA. "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. Katie is our only child, and we love her very much. We just want her back safe. The other day, Katie told me that she was ready to ride a big girl's bike without training wheels, and I promised her that she could do that on her birthday." Her voice cracked, and she began to sob.
Soren felt Emily nudge him to get his attention. "You doing all right?" she asked. "I know how much cases get to you when there's a child involved."
"I'm all right," Soren said. "Aside from wanting to punch the uncle for blaming his son, I'm all right."
"Please, whoever you are... 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," Beth spoke with tears flowing down her cheeks as she sobbed.
˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗
Soren watched as an agent spoke to Susan. "I'm sorry, ma'am. I can't let you do that," they told her.
"But I'm his mother, for God's sake!" the woman responded.
"Look, I understand-"
Soren interrupted the agent's words. "I'll handle this," he told the agent, dismissing them with a nod. "Jeremy is speaking with our agents right now."
Susan looked up at him. "Well, then, I should be there, too!" she told him.
"No, you can't do that," he stated simply, leaving no room for objection. "Jeremy feels responsible for what happened. Having you there might only intensify that feeling."
"One minute, you're having a lighter engraved for your husband, and the next minute, Katie's name is being paged. I never thought something like this could happen to our family," she said. Soren found her words a bit odd. Of course, he knew people grieve differently, but Susan seemed to turn things back to herself.
Soren gave her a small nod. "Nobody ever does," he told her.
Susan looked past him to Derek and Spencer, who were interviewing her son. "What are they doing to my son?" she asked.
"Sensory method questioning," Soren told her. "It'll help Jeremy remember what happened before he realized Katie was gone," he explained.
˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗
"Picked up Katie's scent on something in here. Just a lot of half-eaten food, empty cups," the officer said.
"And this," Franklin interjected.
"What did you find?" Hotch asked.
"It's a necklace in the trash. Bag it and label it in case there's any connection," Franklin explained.
Hotch stared at the necklace, recognizing it as the one that the little girl had been wearing before her abduction. "There is. Katie was wearing it," Hotch told him.
Soren went alongside Hotch and JJ to question the parents of Katie on the necklace.
"She found it in the schoolyard about a year ago," Beth told them.
"This is 24-karat gold, and the stones are real," JJ told Beth.
Soren looked down at the mother, not believing the story that Katie had found it in the schoolyard. "Somebody would have been looking for this necklace if it was lost," he pointed out. "Is there any reason that Katie would have lied? Could it have been a gift, or maybe she stole it?" he asked.
Paul glared at him. "My daughter is not a thief!" he defended.
Soren was going to respond, but JJ spoke before he could. "How far do you live from here?" she asked the parents.
"About a mile," Beth answered.
"Do you mind if we search your house?" Hotch asked, his expression still stern as ever.
"Of course not."
Mr. Jacobs, having taken this a bit poorly, immediately looked at Hotch. "What do you think you're gonna find there?" he asked.
Soren waved his hand dismissively. "Just protocol," he reassured him. Clearly, the father did not believe him.
"What are you not telling us?" Mr. Jacobs asked, but nobody replied to the question.
˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗
Soren, Spencer, and Derek all get to the house.
"Somebody lit a fire last night," Spencer noted.
Derek looked over to the kitchen. "Well, there's dirty dishes for three in the kitchen, so they eat together as a family," he said.
Spencer opened up the DVD player. "Hey, my favorite movie from when I was a kid!" Spencer noticed, taking the disc out and passing it over to Derek.
"So they watch movies together, too."
Soren tilted his head. "By the fireplace in a nice house in the perfect neighborhood," he narrated his thoughts out loud. "Couldn't have painted this any cozier," he sighed, knowing that if something seemed too good to be true, then it probably was.
"That's what worries me," Derek told him.
Soren looked around eventually finding Katie's bedroom. "Found her bedroom," he said.
"Katie's been wetting her bed," Spencer noticed.
Derek looked at the bed where they had pulled the blankets and sheets back. "A lot of six-year-olds do. Could be bad dreams," he rationalized.
"Some kids won't get up at night, 'cause they're afraid of the dark," Spencer told them.
Soren looked around the room, his eyes landing on a toy basket. "Or it could be more complex than that," he muttered to himself.
Spencer noticed Soren looking at the toys. "Most girls covet their dolls like an extension of themselves," he said as Soren walked over to the basket.
He looked through the toys, pausing when he found a Barbie doll. "Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of," he said, holding up the doll for Spencer and Derek to see.
Morgan stared at the doll. "Reid, I know these signs-acting out on her toys, wetting the bed. She's obviously covering up something about that necklace."
"And her cousin might be holding something back," Spencer added.
Soren's grip tightened on the doll. "And we know why," he stated, his voice laced with an anger that he had no point to hide.
Derek pulled out his cellphone, and it rung a few times before Hotch answered.
"Yeah?" Hotch answered the phone.
"Hotch, we think Katie's being molested, and we both know the odds," Derek told him.
"Most likely by somebody under the same roof."
"If Mr. Jacobs bought his own daughter a necklace, nobody would think twice about that, so why would Katie lie?" Derek asked.
"She didn't... because her father didn't buy her the necklace," Hotch said. "Get back here as soon as you can," he told them.
˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗
Emily, Hotch, and Soren went into the storage room with Richard.
"What's going on here?" Richard demanded.
Prentiss looked at Richard. "We're questioning Jeremy in another room," she told him.
"I know that. Why?" he asked.
Soren's hand twitched towards his holstered gun. "We would like to talk to you about a few things," he told him. If it were up to him, this bastard would already be dead.
"What would you like to know?" Richard asked.
Emily noticed that Soren reached for his gun and swatted his hand away from the holstered firearm before Richard or Hotch could take notice. "What are Jeremy's interests?" Emily answered.
Richard took a few seconds to think. "Uh, computer. Likes to be on the computer. Spends hours at a time," he shrugged. "What's going on?" he asked.
Soren looked at Emily, who returned it with one of her own. Soren reluctantly placed his hands into his pockets. "What's Jeremy's social circle like?" he questioned, ignoring Richard and answering his question with one of his own.
"Don't know. Kids at school, I suppose," Richard answered.
"You live under the same roof, but you can't name any of his friends?" Hotch remarked.
Richard, now talking using hand movements to accompany his words, replied, "He spends hours in his room listening to that metal music I don't understand."
"Has he always been this distant with you, or is this something new?" Emily asked.
Richard rubbed his chin in thought. "Well, I guess-I guess it's always been like this," he told her. "That's why I don't find it odd."
"Well, we did some checking, and, uh... we found out that Jeremy, at the ripe age of 13, has a record," Hotch told him.
"For stealing, six months ago. We knew that," Richard nodded.
"Didn't this strike you as even the tiniest bit odd?" Soren asked. "I mean, I'd be pretty concerned if my kid stole something."
Richard glared at him in response. "He stole earrings for a girl he liked. When I was his age, I probably did the same thing!" he defended.
"Must've wanted one hell of a first impression, then," Soren told him. "Those earrings were pretty expensive."
Richard rolled his eyes. "We reprimanded him," he stated coldly.
"What was her name?" Hotch asked.
"Who?"
"The girl Jeremy liked so much he stole for," Emily reminded.
"I-- I don't know. We're his parents. He's 13 years old! If he hadn't been arrested, we probably wouldn't even know that he was interested in girls," Richard told her, causing Soren to roll his eyes. He had no patience or respect for animals like him.
As soon as Hotch walked off, Emily held out her hand. "Give me your gun," she ordered.
"Why?" Soren asked.
"As much as I don't like this guy, I also can't have you shooting him," she responded, once again gesturing for Soren to hand over his weapon.
"Fine," he relented and handed over his gun to Emily.
˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗
"Mr. Jacobs, have a seat," Hotch pulled out a chair, and Richard sat down. "Did, uh, Jeremy and Katie spend a lot of time together?" he asked.
"Our families spend a lot of time together. He likes his cousin," Richard told them.
"Does that make you jealous?" Hotch questioned.
"What? Why would it? Why would it?" Richard returned the question. Soren looked to Emily before placing Katie's necklace on the table.
"We found that in the trash. How is it that you know your six-year-old niece likes to read books and play dress-up, but you don't know the first thing about your own son?" Emily asked.
"Molesters only pay attention to the children they're grooming, ignoring even their own," Soren explains, staring at Richard.
"Katie wore that necklace because you told her to, because you told her she was special. As if the sexual abuse wasn't enough," Emily added.
"Is that when it started?" Hotch asked him.
Richard looked up from the necklace. "When what started?" He asked.
"When you gave Katie the necklace, when she started wetting the bed, when her parents came to you and Susan wondering why their daughter locked herself in her room," Hotch went on. "Was that when it started? Is that when the molestation started?
Richard stood up from his chair. "This is ridiculous!"
Hotch also stood up. "You just couldn't help yourself, could you?"
"You're all crazy!" Richard retorted.
"Like so many little girls before."
"I-- I wanna get outta here," Richard stated.
Hotch also stood up. "You just couldn't help yourself, could you?"
"You're all crazy!" Richard retorted.
"Like so many little girls before."
"I-- I wanna get outta here," Richard stated.
Soren watched as Hotch broke the guy. Richard deserved it for causing such pain to Katie. She was only six. If Emily hadn't taken his gun, then the guy would probably be dead. Not that Soren would care if he had.
Hotch went on. "You started spending more time with her and telling her she was special."
"I'm not listening to you!"
"You knew it was sick, your brother's own daughter." Soren chimed in.
"Shut up!" Richard shouted.
"Did she outgrow your preference?" Hotch asked him.
"Shut up!"
Hotch simply asked the question again. "Did she get too old for you?" he asked, getting closer to the man.
Richard yelled, "No!" He looked between the three agents with heavy breaths. "No," he repeated again in a much calmer way. "I may have done some things that... you couldn't possibly understand, but I would never hurt Katie," Richard insisted.
"Whoever ripped the necklace off Katie did it in a rage, and he just seems... broken," Hotch told the two other agents quietly before walking out of the room.
Soren crossed his arms over his chest, looking down as he thought about something. One minute, I'm having a lighter engraved for my husband, and the next minute, Katie's name is being paged. He recalled Susan saying this. Had he even seen Richard smoke once this entire day?
"Soren?" Emily called his name, quietly snapping him out his thoughts. He turned to her. "You all right?" She asked. Soren nodded. "Fine. Just something's bothering me," he mumbled before looking at Richard.
Soren called out to the man. "For a guy put under so much stress, I haven't seen you smoke once," he pointed out, uncrossing his arms and putting his hands in his pocket.
"I quit over a month ago," Richard told them.
Emily and Soren shared a look, both coming to the same realization. They both walk out of the room and quickly made their way over to where the aunt, father, and mother are, alongside JJ and Derek.
˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗
They both approached Derek and JJ. "I don't think the aunt is telling us everything, and this could get dicey," Emily warned them.
"Susan-" Soren started but was quickly interrupted by the mother, who stood up so fast that he was surprised she didn't slip and fall.
"What is it?" she asked.
"We need to talk with Susan," Soren told her.
Beth looked to Susan before looking back to the agents. "Why? What happened?" she asked. "Did you find her? Did you find Katie?"
Soren shook his head. "No, we haven't found your daughter," he told the mother.
Paul stood beside Beth. "What-is it about Jeremy?" he asked.
"No," Emily told him.
"Richard?" Beth guessed.
Soren turned to Susan. "We need to talk to you," he told her, briefly looking at Katie's parents before refocusing on Susan. "You should come this way," he advised, leading her off with Emily.
"You used to work in retail?" Emily asked, but it was really more of a statement since they already knew that. Soren decided it was best for him to remain silent. He briefly looked over to see Derek and JJ holding back the parents, who were wondering what was going on.
"I'm sorry. How does that-"
Emily interrupted her. "You mentioned it earlier," she stated.
"So what?"
"What you didn't tell me was you used to work in this mall years ago," Emily reminded her.
"What does that have to do with anything?" Susan asked.
Soren heard Beth shout, "Susan, do you know something!?"
Both he and Emily looked over to the parents before Emily continued to question Susan. "You know this building like the back of your hand. Earlier, you made sure to separate from the group," she went on.
The parents continued to yell at Susan and the agents. "Someone tell us something!" Beth demanded. "What the hell is happening!"
"God, Susan! What do you know!" Paul screamed.
Soren motioned for Emily to move Susan away from the parents. "We should move away from them," he recommended.
They moved away from the parents. Beth tried to follow, Morgan holding her back. "Susan, no! What do you know? What did you do to Katie?" Katie's mother demanded to know.
"What did she do? What did she do to her?" Beth repeated as she began to cry and Paul began to comfort her. Soren watched this happen sadly before looking away and following Emily to continue the questioning.
˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗
They sat Susan at a table and stood in front of her. "So," Soren began, "what did you do with Katie?" He asked Susan.
"Why would you ask me that?"
"You and Richard have been playing the happy family when the truth is you've been separated. Why else didn't you realize he hasn't had a cigarette in over a month?" Emily tells her. "He has no use for a new lighter," she added.
"Richard and I have been trying to work things out!" Susan told them.
Soren scoffed. "And did you think getting rid of an innocent little girl would magically fix your relationship?" He asked.
"You're not making a bit of sense! Why would I hurt Katie?"
"Did it occur to you last week?" Emily asked. "After you saw on the news that a little girl was snatched from a local mall and found dead three days later?"
Soren looked down at Susan and crossed his arms. "You tie her up? Duct tape her mouth too?" he questioned. "She could die if you do that. She has asthma! Or is that what you want?"
Susan looked down at the table silently. "This was not supposed to happen to my family," she said.
"It didn't just happen, Susan," Emily told her. "You took her, a 6-year-old vulnerable child who trusted you, who trusted your husband. You need to tell me where she is," she demanded.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Susan continued her lies.
Soren had enough. He grabbed the doll and slammed it onto the table, making Susan jump in the process. "This is what your husband makes Katie feel. This is how she sees herself because of him!" He narrowed his eyes as he went on. "Dirty, ugly, self-loathing!"
Susan looked away from the doll. "No!" She refused to accept it.
"Those nights that she would stay at your house, and he would sneak into her room and tell her not to make a sound," Emily commented.
"No, please don't do this," Susan pleaded.
"Do you have any idea how scary that is? How confused she must have been while you lay in the other room defending a monster who always had and always will have these urges!" Soren shouted.
"Don't. Please don't," Susan whimpered.
"There's nothing left for you to protect, Susan. Instead of shielding her from more pain, you blamed her for your own," Emily declared.
"No, no, no!"
Emily observed how the woman tries not to cry. "Yes, you did. You have robbed Katie of her childhood. Are you going to steal the rest of her life from her as well?" she asked.
"No! Enough!" Susan shouted as she began to sob.
Soren looked down at her. "Where is she?" He asked, his voice calmer now that he knew he would get an answer.
˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗
Katie was found in a storage room. She had to be revived, but the medics saved her.
Jeremy looked up at Derek. "Is Katie gonna be alright?" he asked him.
"She will eventually."
"I heard her call my mom's name... That's what I remembered before," Jeremy admitted.
"What's gonna happen to me now?"
Spencer looked down at the little boy. "I don't know, Jeremy, but, uh, we're gonna make sure you're all right, okay?" Spencer reassured him. "Let's go," he said as he led the boy away.
JJ looked over to the ambulance where Katie is laying on a gurney with her parents beside her. "Susan consoling Katie's mother, that's an image that's gonna haunt me for a while," she remarked.
Penelope followed her gaze. "Well, we could have been left haunted by a lot worse," she commented.
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Word count: 4259