Under the Spotlight

Chapter Six

There are many details that they are missing for this case. Everything about the box was well thought out by the unsub. The hand had been severed just above the wrist, leaving enough arm to keep the officer's gold watch secured. The dandelions inside of the box are still a brilliant yellow, indicating they had been picked just before the box had been secured.

The detail that Jeremiah is struggling with is that the hand was secured within a smaller, second box. Typically, the use of another box is necessary when the perpetrator has left a note. No notes, however, have been found anywhere in the box or in the areas Cassie would have brought the box to.

"How is it that she has seven bodyguards and three cameras in her front yards and not a single detail was picked out about this guy?" Rebecca Sloane, another of Jeremiah's team members, questions.

Rebecca's blue eyes scan over the file that they have on the case, poking holes in the little knowledge they have. Her long, blonde hair is swept into a tight bun that sits at the back of her head. Her skin is still slightly tanner from her vacation to Hawaii that she went on just last month

The fourth and final team member, Jessica Franklyn, dramatically flips a page over. Her dark bangs fall between her glasses and into her dark eyes. "He had to have known about the cameras," the agent responds. "He's been to the house before."

Pressing his hands into the table, Jeremiah stares at the contents of his manila envelope. His mind keeps drifting back to the conversation that he had with Cassie and how she had reacted to the mere mention of Cameron Jacobs's name. It's obvious that there's more to her story than she is willing to admit.

Jeremiah knocks twice on the table. "Franklyn, could you please run a background check on Cassandra Sanchez for me?"

All three team members startledly look at Jeremiah. It's not often that they run checks on victims— especially when the victim is a well known celebrity. If they want to know how the well-loved CassieNova is connected to an infamous serial killer, they have to look more into her. They have to understand why the unsub chose her.

"Why would we run a background check on our victim?" Agent Sloane pushes. As team leader, she has the final say in most decisions. She chooses where to assign the team members and when to run reports. Anything and everything that the team does has to be run by Sloane first.

Suddenly, Jeremiah finds himself questioning if he is making the correct decision. His suspicions could be wrong. There is no reason for a world renowned superstar to lie to the very people trying to protect her.

Before he can say anything, Flipps rushes into the room with a thick, manila envelope. He drops it onto the table with a loud smack, spilling out some of the contents. "That arrogant son of a bitch has been telling the truth," he claims. His face is red from shame or anger. It's hard to tell sometimes with Flipps, since his face gets red if he breathes too hard.

Spinning the file toward her, Rebecca grabs the paper on top of the large stack. "School records?"

The older agent sinks into his chair whilst shaking head. "In every area that he lived in, Cameron Jacobs enrolled a girl by the name of Natalia Jacobs into a school." Flipps nods his head toward the envelope. "And in every last one of those schools, one of the teachers went missing. All of them male."

Now, Rebecca is quickly going through the paperwork. She reads through the papers faster than she can understand them, throwing them down. "That's not possible. Jacobs killed both of his twin girls."

Flipps shakes his head. "A look back through the forensics finds that they had the skeletal remains of one child. They only assumed because of decomposition that it could have been two."