It was still raining in Seattle.
They had been here for two days.
The team members worked in the same place as the last time they were here.
There were more pictures of victims on the information board than a few days ago.
Bruce and Morgan went to the home of the latest victim, Zoe's father, to ask about the situation. They had already released a preliminary profiling.
But for a big city like this, only a few characteristics were not enough to identify the murderer.
"Hello,
Mr. Perez.
FBI, we would like to ask you about your daughter, Zoe. "Bruce took out his ID and a black girl was leaving.
Zoe's father was a professor at the university before he retired, majoring in religious studies.
He was an old man who looked very scholarly.
He was serious, old-fashioned, and unapproachable. "Since Zoe moved out of here, we haven't been in touch much."
"Zoe was a good girl.
I was too strict with her and always wanted to save her from those unrealistic fantasies. "Perez looked at the picture on the cabinet next to the TV.
"Do you mean my love for vampires when you say unrealistic fantasies?" Bruce asked.
"It was more than just love. Zoe was obsessed with vampires since she was an adolescent.
She firmly believed that vampires were real.
She even told me that she had seen them before.
I couldn't change her mind. "Perez took down the picture.
There were only two people in it.
He rubbed the frame with his hand.
"Her mother died a long time ago.
I thought it was just a trend among young people.
Like chasing a star, I didn't care. But as she grew older, it got worse and worse, until she … died two days ago. "
"I'm sorry. Has Zoe done anything unusual recently?" Morgan asked in a low voice.
"She only calls me occasionally. The last time was a month ago. She mentioned that she was going to get a new life and apologized to me. She said that she was too stubborn before. I thought she had figured it out and was willing to give up those unrealistic fantasies."
"Did she specify what the new life was?"
Perez shook his head.
.....
When Bruce returned to the police station, he saw the black woman sitting at the desk in their office. It was the same woman he saw at Perez's house. She was looking at her phone. Reid stood in front of the information board, flipping through the information and writing.
"Hello, how can I help you?" Bruce looked at her with a smile. She was obviously not a police officer, nor did she look like a family member of the victim. There was no sadness on her face. Bruce didn't understand why she was sitting in their office.
"Uh, Bruce, she is …" Reid turned around when he heard the voice. His expression was a little strange.
"I'm the special consultant for this case. You can call me Sabin." The black girl raised her head and said. Then, she lowered her head and looked at her phone again.
She looked like she was in her twenties. She had thick eyebrows and big eyes. Her long black curly hair almost reached her waist. She wore huge and unique earrings that looked a little like an inverted pyramid. She was wearing casual jeans, and her nails were dyed in different colors. Her slender wrists were exposed when she raised her hand, and her casual sitting posture was out of place with the atmosphere in the police station.
"Special Advisor? We've never done this before. Hi, I'm Derek.
Morgan, what department are you from? "
Sabin didn't even raise his head. He didn't say anything. Morgan shrugged and sat at the table.
After a while, Hotch walked in. "It's been confirmed. Miss Sabin will be the special advisor in this case and will provide help." Hotch then introduced the team members to Sabin.
From Hotch's tone, it seemed like he had just received the news. Sabin's participation in the case was completely out of the blue. Otherwise, they would have known about it before they flew to Seattle. It was even stranger that Sabin had joined in the middle of the case.
"Just call me Sabin." Sabin didn't feel that it was strange to only have a name or surname, or that she was deliberately hiding her identity. In a calm voice, she said, "I won't interfere with your investigation. This isn't my specialty. You can completely pretend that I don't exist."
The atmosphere was a little awkward. "Then what's the special advisor's role?" Bruce was a little dissatisfied with her cold and casual attitude.
"To save your lives sometimes," Sabin said bluntly. "When you've locked onto the suspect and are ready to arrest him, it's best to take me with you. Now, I need to take a look at the victim's body. "
"Bruce, you go with Sabin," Hotch ordered.
oo00oo
At night, Bruce stood by the window of Hotch's room in the hotel and asked about Sabin's situation.
"I'm not too sure. She's using the S.H.E.L.D. process." Hotch sat on the chair by the small table by the window, flipping through a folder in his hand.
"She said she's not an employee. She just has a cooperative relationship with some departments."
"You seem to care a lot about her?" Hotch was still looking down at the file in his hand. The table lamp beside the table cast a dim yellow light on his side profile.
"I asked Garcia to check her information, but he didn't find anything."
"Mhmm." Hotch made a sound, still focused on the case file.
Bruce suddenly realized something. "It's not that kind of care." He took a step behind Hotch and massaged his shoulders. "It's just that she has an ability that's different from ordinary people."
"A mutant?" Hotch's hand that was flipping through the pages paused.
"I don't think so. When she was in the morgue …" Bruce recalled Sabin's behavior.
The black girl took out a silver pendant and hung it on a chain on her finger. She reached out her hand and pointed the tip of the pendant, which was similar to her earring, at the corpse. Then she closed her eyes and murmured something.
"She's more like a medium or a witch." That was what Bruce thought at the time. Although the pendant didn't move, Bruce did feel some kind of energy fluctuation.
"Are you serious?"
"Even vampires have appeared. What's so strange about witches? Maybe werewolves too," Bruce said casually. "You know, these three usually appear at the same time in novels."
"When I went to visit Zola's father today, I saw Sabin in his house. I asked Sabin later, and she said that she and Zola were friends when they were young. After they grew up and moved, they rarely contacted each other. This time, she accidentally learned about Zola's death. I used this clue to ask Garcia to check on Sabin."
"Our focus should be on the case, not this temporary colleague." Hotch reached out and grabbed Bruce's hand that was about to do something to his button. "Especially when there's a breakthrough in the case."
Before they got off work in the afternoon, they received Zola's autopsy report. They found that the saliva on the necks of the first few corpses was actually Zola's. This meant that Zola was very likely the murderer of the first few victims, or at least an accomplice. Garcia was already digging deeper into Zola's situation.
"Bruce, I'm not rejecting you, but now is not the time." Hotch felt Bruce withdraw his hand. He lowered his head and silently walked past the empty chair on the other side of the table.
"I know." Bruce turned around and exchanged a kiss with Hotch. He didn't look depressed at all as Hotch had imagined. Instead, he smiled mischievously. They still had to gather at the police station at seven in the morning. He was just a little upset that he had fallen asleep two days ago. It seemed like this situation would continue for a few more days. Bruce lay on the bed in Hotch's room.
"You plan to sleep here?" Hotch raised his eyebrows.
"What else can I do?" After rolling around twice, Bruce curled up under the blanket and looked at Hotch innocently.
oo00oo
The next day, not long after they arrived at the police station, Garcia called. "Guess what I found? This is Zola Perez. She doesn't have a job, but there's a sum of money in her account every month. It's directly deposited. It's about three thousand dollars. I originally thought it was her father who gave her the money, but later on, I found that there were regular withdrawals from the ATM near the previous victims' jobs. Although it's only two hundred dollars, it's the same as Zola's monthly deposit date. "
Garcia quickly said a long sentence and took a deep breath. Then he continued in a proud tone, "More importantly, I found that half of the money would be transferred to another account. I've sent you the address. Am I a genius?"
When Bruce kicked open the suspect's door with a gun, the suspect stuck his head out of the bed in a daze. He felt that this scene was strangely familiar. After the suspect woke up, he panicked and tried to resist, but was suppressed and arrested.
The police found a sharp instrument used to stab the neck and a blood drawing instrument in the suspect's house. They also found the victim's blood in the fridge. The suspect knew that the evidence was conclusive and admitted to his crime.
When Zola was young, she had met a vampire and saved his life. The vampire had left Zola a bottle of blood and told her that the blood could turn humans into vampires and give them eternal life. Zola had believed it. After that, she became obsessed with vampires and hoped that she could be reborn as a vampire after suffering a setback in reality. She met the suspect they arrested. With the suspect's help, she established an interest club and organized a group of young people with similar attitudes. She instilled some ideas into them. More than a month ago, the case in Forks happened. Zola firmly believed that it was the work of a vampire. She wanted to attract the vampire to appear and transform herself, thus creating a series of tragedies.
The suspect also wanted to turn into a vampire. After hearing about Zola's past and killing a few victims, he didn't achieve his goal of attracting a vampire. He set his sights on the blood Zola had mentioned that the vampire had left her. He planned to kill Zola.
"So why didn't Zola use that bottle of blood to transform herself? Since she wanted to become a vampire so much. " Bruce, who had listened to the boring story, asked as he walked out of the police station. He couldn't figure it out.
"For vampires, death is the first requirement for eternal life." Sabin's expression was cold. His brown eyes seemed to have seen through the vicissitudes of life.
Bruce understood. Only when the body contained the vampire's blood at the time of death could one be turned into a vampire. But she didn't have the courage to kill herself. She probably made use of this to make the victims willingly die.
"Then what about the man we caught? Is it because he's afraid of death? "JJ interrupted.
"You randomly filled a bottle with liquid ten years ago. What's left ten years later?" Bruce thought of the black and red glass bottle that Sabin had taken away.
On the way back to Quantico, Reid was still frowning. He had been like this ever since they caught the murderer.
"Spencer, what's wrong?" It was rare for Bruce to see Reid so troubled. "Is there anything you can't figure out with an IQ of 187?"
Reid glared at Bruce. Of course, that glare didn't have any power. "Forget about the case. Do you really believe that story? How can vampires really exist? "
"You can't deny the existence of something just because you don't know about it," Bruce said mockingly. He suddenly wanted to see Reid's worldview shatter.
"Then prove it," Reid said seriously.
Bruce thought about it and felt that there was nothing to hide. He took out his phone and sent a video. It was the one that Meggen had sent to Garcia.
After watching it, Reid said calmly, "This video doesn't prove anything."
Bruce patted him on the shoulder. "It's up to you whether you believe it or not. You know what Sabin's answer was when I asked her what she was good at? Occultism. Maybe you can discuss it with her."
"Occultism refers to the study of mysterious powers. Knowledge that can't be explained by logical reasoning or existing science," Reid said. Then he thought of something and became interested again. "But this is only temporarily unexplainable by science. One day, this will be included in the scope of science. Just like vampires, even if they're real, in my opinion, they might be caused by some kind of virus that can survive after the body dies …"
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
