“Are you kidding me?” I ask.

“He’s getting more efficient,” Astra notes.

“Look at all the kids in the background just standing there watching,” Mo says, her tone thick with disgust. “They’re filming it.”

“Such is the state of our world today, my friend. It’s all about the clicks and social media clout these days,” Paige says.

“In all fairness, what did you want them to do?” Rick asks. “Jumping in to help might have only gotten them hurt too. Or worse.”

Paige shrugs. “It just seems that somebody could have done something other than stand there filming just to post on their IG page. But yeah, I see your point, I guess.”

As the reporter starts to interview some of those same students who’d stood around filming, I shake my head.

“Turn it off,” I say.

Mo does, plunging the room into a silence that’s saturated with tension. Folding my arms over my chest, I start pacing that familiar track again, my mind racing. That’s two in the same day. And overall, that makes four kids from prominent families taken in the most audacious ways I’ve ever seen. In all my years on the job, I’ve never heard of—let alone chased somebody—so brazen in the commission of their crimes.

“Bold doesn’t even begin to describe this guy,” Astra says, echoing my thoughts.

Her voice breaks the silence in the room and helps pull me out of my head. I stop pacing, planting my hands on the back of my chair, and lean down. We need to get inside this guy’s head. We need a profile. But he’s given us so little to work with that coming up with even the basics is proving to be a daunting task. Closing my eyes, I silently count to ten, trying to get my head on straight. When all else fails, you go back to the basics. And the most basic thing when you’re profiling an offender is the victims. What can this guy’s victims tell us about him?

“Okay, let’s look at this from a different angle,” I start. “What do the children of a Fortune 500 company’s CEO, a US Senator, a federal prosecutor, and a federal judge have in common?”

“They all come from wealthy, high-profile families,” Mo says.

“True. But I think this goes deeper than socioeconomics,” I say. “What else?”

“They’re all educated, motivated, driven,” Paige offers. “They’ve all got bright futures.”

“They’re all in roughly the same geographical area,” Mo says. “They all live less than an hour from each other.”

“That might support the trafficking theory with the Beltway area serving as a kind of one-stop shop,” Astra says.

I listen to all the ideas they’re throwing at me, and although everything they’re saying is true and accurate, I don’t feel like they hit the target. I can’t explain why or what it is, but there just seems to be more to these abductions than that. Those facts don’t quite fit the frame in my mind. They’re border pieces, but the broader picture in the center of the puzzle remains incomplete.

I shake my head. “There’s something we’re missing. Something we’re not seeing,” I say. “There’s information we don’t have—critical information that’s going to help us figure out not only why this is happening, but who this guy is.”

“What is it?” Astra asks.

“I have no idea,” I grumble. “Rick, is there anything on the dark web?”

“Other than the usual smattering of trolls who seem to be enjoying the suffering these wealthy families are going through, nothing,” he says. “I haven’t found anything that hints at some organized conspiracy to snatch these kids.”

“I still feel like a trafficking ring is the most likely answer, and these abductions are random,” Mo says. “The other thing these kids all have in common is that they’re all physically attractive. I have no doubt there are plenty of monsters out there who would pay good money for young, good-looking kids like these four.”

She’s one hundred percent right about that. There is no shortage of disgusting monsters out there who pay for kids. But even that doesn’t quite fit the opaque and amorphous frame in my mind. I’ve never been fully sold on the trafficking angle, but something in the back of my head is screaming even louder that it’s not the answer we’re searching for… that this has nothing to do with trafficking these kids to child predators. I’m sure of it. I just need to figure out what it is.

“We won’t abandon the theory entirely, but I think we need to put our focus elsewhere. I honestly don’t think it’s a trafficking ring,” I say.

“Why not?” Astra asks.

“Because trafficking rings rely on shadows and secrecy. They take great pains to avoid bringing attention to themselves, and they typically prey on kids who live high-risk lifestyles—runaways, prostitutes, drug abusers,” I say. “Going after these kids in such a public and brazen way is the exact opposite of that. Especially when they’re all from very prominent, wealthy families. It’s like he wanted the attention—wanted people to see him taking these kids. He wants eyes on these abductions. That doesn’t jibe with what I know of trafficking rings. It makes me wonder why he wants that attention.”

The room falls silent again as everybody seems to be considering my words. Mo finally leans forward and nods. I hadn’t been able to articulate those thoughts until just now. But as the words came out of my mouth, they had the ring of truth in my head. There are still a host of questions that need to be answered, but I think that’s an important one that will allow us to put the trafficking angle on the back burner and help put our focus where it needs to be.

“That makes a lot of sense,” Mo says.

My cellphone rings, so I pull it out of my pocket and see it’s an incoming Facetime call from Violet. I quickly connect it, and when the picture resolves, she’s staring back at me with her eyes wide and a near-panicked look on her face.

“Violet, what is it?” I ask. “Are you and the Senator okay?”

“I’m fine. We’re both fine,” she says. “But we just had something delivered to the house. We don’t know what it means, but Elliot thought you needed to know.”

“What is it?”

“I’m going to send you a picture of it.”

“Okay.”

My phone pings with an incoming text message, so I pull up the photo and frown. It’s a black 3x5 card that’s emblazoned with a quote done in red calligraphic lettering. As I read the words on the card several times, a hot rush of adrenaline floods my veins.

“Do you know what that means, Chief?” Violet asks.

“I’m going to need some time with this,” I reply. “I’ll let you know.”

“Uh. Okay.”

“I’ll call you back later,” I say.

I disconnect the call and look up at my team as I feel a sense of dread blending with excitement churning in my belly. This is the thing we’ve been missing—the key that’s unlocking this case and taking it in a whole new direction.

“We’ve been looking at this all wrong,” I say. “This isn’t about the kids. Never has been.”

“What’s this about then?” Astra asks.

“This is about the parents.”

FBI Operational Black Site, Foggy Bottom District; Washington DC

“The Olanges got one,” Astra says.

“Same with the Berenthals,” Paige adds.

“And the Moores too,” Mo chimes in.