Apprehended [Published]

Chapter 4: "We found a body."

"I don't understand why he chose these girls. They have nothing in common and there is no similarity between them besides their looks," I stated as I slid another file off the pile and into my hands.

"Well it could be just as simple as their looks," Calum suggested. He lifted his head momentarily to look at me before he put his cheek back to his fist.

"That's a broad range of people that fit this description, it could be anyone that's taken next," I said as I flipped open to the picture of Tegan. She had short blonde hair with blue eyes, and when compared to any of the other girls the only things that were different were the eye color and the hair length. It was as if there wasn't a strict image of the type, but only a basic description. 

I could see why people thought it was a Steve Bennent copy cat because Anna, and Audrey looked similar to these girls, but then again all blonde's kind of look alike if you look at enough of them. Sure the hair color could be a little different by a few shades, but they will always be about the same. Just because the girls were blonde and of similar age didn't mean anything. He could be using these girls for something other than Steve Bennent ever did. 

That was clear from the fact that no bodies had been found yet. Steve always got rid of the girl before getting another one. This guy was collecting them, but for what I wasn't sure. I was about to ask Calum what he thought of my theory, but I glanced up to see him asleep on the table. His head and been hanging dangerously low to the table for a while now, but it looked like sleep finally took over. We had been awake for almost twenty-three hours straight trying to find a break in the case. 

Of course, we ran into more dead ends than break throughs, but it was understandable. The team was sleeping in shifts so that we could have a pair of fresh eyes going over everything we had around the clock. It wasn't hard since we didn't have a lot. We had the bodies of the girls he killed when Calum last called in for help, and the files on the kidnapped girls, a few that were in our morgue right now. A chill raced up my spine at the thought. 

What had made him sudenly kill all those girls. There were ten found dead in quick succession, all of them had been kidnapped prior, some for years, but now it made sense at where they had gone. They didn't runaway, or leave their families; they were taken. The answer still remained; why? The girls taken didn't have a logical reason, there had to be something about them that they had in common, but what it was I couldn't see. 

It had to be something small, I decided as I tried to look over the files again. I wanted to find out why it was these girls so that we could prevent another girl from getting taken, but what could it be? 

I was about to ask Calum if he thought the girls were unrelated from the Bennent kidnappings since they didn't look very much like Anna or Audrey, but when I saw him with his head on the desk I decided not to.  The whole team had started sleeping in shifts a few days ago, and Calum and I typically got the last shift. That meant that before every shift we were awake for twenty-three hours before getting to sleep for seven. It didn't seem like a fair trade off, but we had to do something.

Each shift meant that there were fresher eyes on the material and new ears to listen to the calls from the tip line. There was someone out there who had seen something, but didn't think it was important enough to report to us. There were known cases where a witness had cracked the case open. I recalled one from a case study from school, when suddenly I had a possible answer for how these girls were taken from all over the country instead of clustered in one stop like the Bennent kidnappings.

"Calum, wake up," I said as I placed a hand on his shoulder to shake him awake. He quickly jumped out of his chair and away from the touch as if he thought I was going to hurt him. We stood there for a few moments after the intical shock before he ran his fingers through his hair to smooth it out.