All In, page 12
"Ken, come here," she called out, and Ken appeared beside her in seconds. She held up the laptop. "Found this."
He took the laptop from her and examined it. "Good. We'll have to get into it back at the precinct."
Nicky nodded. "And we need to find more evidence to link him to the kidnappings. There has to be something here."
As the search continued, Nicky's eye caught something on the wall. She walked over to it, squinting in the dim light. It was a piece of paper tacked up with pushpins. Nicky took it down and examined it. It was a map of the city, with various locations circled in red. There were over a dozen locations, all with different labels: "park," "alley," "empty lot," "abandoned building."
"What do you think this is?" Ken asked, coming up behind her.
"I don't know, but it's something." She scanned the map, then stopped at a familiar location. She pointed at it. "Here's where he met me. These must be locations where he draws out his victims." She scanned for the movie theater, the one Moira had been abducted from. But it wasn't there.
She looked at Ken, seeing that he was scanning it, too, likely for the same reason. When he didn't spot the movie theater, he sighed.
"Well, everything about him will be on his computer and in his phone, I'm sure," he said. "I say we let the team finish up here, and we head back to extract the info."
Nicky nodded. As they left the apartment, her mind raced. They had a map with possible locations of where the girls could be. They had a laptop with potentially incriminating evidence. They were getting closer to solving this case. But there was still so much work to be done, and Nicky couldn't shake off the feeling of unease. They were dealing with a sick individual, and she didn't know if they were ready for what they might find.
There was no evidence that the girls were dead. But so far, there was no evidence they were alive, either.
***
Nicky had dealt with a lot of sick people in her career as an FBI agent, but what she was uncovering on Dennis French's laptop was making her entire existence feel dirty.
She sat alone in the briefing room, staring at the screen in front of her. The images on the laptop were nothing short of grotesque. She fought the urge to close her eyes, to look away from the horror that lay before her.
She heard the door open and looked up to see Ken walking in.
"Any luck?" he asked, taking a seat across from her.
Nicky shook her head. "Nothing yet. No sign of any of the victims. Just... all this filth."
Ken nodded, his eyes scanning the laptop screen. "This guy is a monster. How could anyone do something like this?"
Nicky didn't answer; her mind was too preoccupied with the images in front of her. She had seen a lot in her time as an FBI agent, but this was something else entirely. It was like staring into the face of pure evil.
She scrolled through the laptop, looking for any sign of the missing girls. But the more she saw, the more she realized just how twisted Dennis French truly was. There was one problem: this imagery was sexually violent in nature, disturbing videos of people... but there was no sign of the victims. And she noted that some of them seemed to be professionally shot, a sort of BDSM that looked shocking at first but might have been consensually shot.
"I'm gonna need the techs to figure out where this stuff came from," Nicky muttered, turning away from the images. "I'm starting to think this is just his twisted collection of videos he found online."
Ken reached over and exited one of the screens so they were both free from the imagery. They let out a collective breath.
"But there's no sign of the victims in anything?" he asked.
"Not that I could find," Nicky replied.
"Well, let's have the techs deal with it," Ken said. "No need to expose yourself to this more than you have to, Nicky."
"Yeah." She turned away, feeling sick to her stomach but also determined. She needed to find the evidence she needed to prove Dennis was the kidnapper, but all she was finding out was how deranged he was.
Ken handed her a stack of papers. "Here are all the transcripts from every conversation he's had on dating apps." He tapped the top paper. "Including his conversation with Moira, and then Amy."
Nicky took the stack of papers, feeling a sense of dread building up inside her. She knew what she was looking for, but the thought of having to go through all of those conversations made her feel uneasy.
"I'll start going through these. Maybe there's something in here that could help." She forced herself to focus, to push aside the sick feeling in her gut. She opened the first transcript, and scanned through the messages.
It was all so mundane—the typical small talk that came with online dating. The conversations with Amy were extensive; they talked to each other for weeks, with Dennis asking to meet several times and Amy always making excuses not to. At one point, Amy just stopped replying. That was odd; there was no sign that they exchanged numbers or social media or that they agreed to meet.
She flipped to Moira's conversation, and that was when it got more strange. Dennis and Moira had matched on Picker, and yet they'd only had two conversations—Dennis had messaged her a few times, but she only replied twice. It didn't look like they'd agreed to meet after all.
Nicky began to tear through the other conversations, desperate for more evidence. She looked for Franny, or Corinne, or Brianna, any of the other girls, but there was no sign of them.
She swallowed hard, then raised her eyes to meet Ken's. He wore the same concerned expression.
"Ken," she said, trailing off.
He nodded. "I know. I wanted to get your opinion first, but based on these, it doesn't look like he's the guy we're looking for. He's just a serial creep. I looked into some of the girls he did meet with, and none of them are missing. They just said he was creepy and didn't look like his photos."
Nicky could hardly believe it. Had they really wasted more time on someone who wasn't even a suspect? The fake profile angle had seemed so perfect, and now, it was like her failure was staring right at her.
"He's not the guy," Nicky said.
"Maybe not," Ken replied. "We have plenty of reason to keep holding him just in case, as we look for more evidence, but..."
Nicky's heart sank. They couldn't afford to waste time if Dennis wasn't their guy. "We should consider other leads," she said.
"Yeah. But where?"
Nicky wished she knew. Everything was collapsing in on itself, and she couldn't stomach the thought that this had all been for nothing. They were quickly losing more of the day. If they didn't narrow down a suspect, another person would surely die.
CHAPTER TWENTY
That girl had not been the perfect one. He'd determined it as he'd followed her around down, unable to find her alone for even a moment. She'd met up with a man, and then they'd met up with friends, then they went to the mall, then went home to a house where she lived with three roommates. No, she was far too much effort, and it felt like fate had turned him in the opposite direction. He would keep tabs on that girl, but for now, he was on the hunt for another.
He sat in his car, scrolling through one of the many dating apps he'd acquired. They were the perfect place to scope out worthy investments, the perfect place to choose someone who might be good enough for him. But there were so many women out there, and so many who were simply not worthy.
He swiped left on profile after profile, dismissing each one with a scoff of derision. How could these women even think they were good enough for him? They were all so plain, so boring. They had no ambition, no drive, no spark.
He sighed as he swiped left on yet another profile that didn't meet his standards.
He was about to give up when he saw her. Matilda. A very old-fashioned name. She was different from the others, with a boldness in her eyes and a smirk on her lips. He clicked on her profile and read through her bio. She was a writer, a traveler, a lover of adventure. He felt a spark of interest ignite within him.
He sent her a message and awaited a response. But it didn't come.
Anger began to gnaw at him with every passing second that he stared at his phone. Where was she? What better things could she possibly have to do? The right one would respond quickly. She wouldn't waste his time, forcing him to wait. Foolishness, all of it.
He turned away from her messages and kept swiping. Maybe somebody else would be good enough. He was getting impatient. He needed someone to love him, but he'd need to love her, too. None of the girls he'd taken were good enough. Not one.
He sighed and rubbed his temples. He needed a break from the endless swiping and the constant disappointment. Maybe he needed to go out and actually meet someone in person. That's where people used to meet before all these dating apps came along, after all. But his options were far too broad out there, and it was difficult to get an "in." No, he needed to stick to his guns, stick to what had given him some success so far.
He opened up Picker, a new dating app that had considerably fewer people on it. He often saw the same faces making the rounds, but he decided to swipe again to see if anyone new or exciting popped up. Anyone with potential.
Then, he saw her.
A beautiful woman with beautiful brown hair and a demure smile. She was hiding much of her face, but he could tell she was pretty. Shy, maybe.
And her name… Nicky.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
In the briefing room with Ken, Nicky felt the weight of the case on her shoulders. It was giving her a headache. They had tried to pick up the pieces from where they'd last left off, but they had nothing yet.
With a sigh, she took out her cell phone just as she felt a buzz. Right in all the chaos, she hadn't bothered to remove the dating app from her phone. Out of curiosity, she opened it up, and staring back at her was a message from another guy.
"Hey, surprised to see someone like you on here," it read.
The name was Jason, and the profile picture showed a guy holding a fish. A generic-looking photo. She was about to pass it off, to think nothing of it, but something stopped her. She could have sworn she'd seen this guy in Moira's matches too. It didn't necessarily mean anything, considering Picker was a small app and only had a certain number of users so far, so the chances of getting mutual matches were more likely than on bigger apps. Still, something felt off.
"Check this out," she said, showing Ken. "I think this guy was on Moira's matches too."
"There were a lot of guys there." Ken grabbed the laptop and opened up the spreadsheet that Alexander sent, scanning through it. "Jason... is it this guy?"
Nicky compared the photos. The guy standing there, holding a fish, was an instant match. "Yeah, it's him."
"Email is generic. Should we look into him? I'm sure you have more than just him as a match in common with Moira," Ken noted. "It'll take forever if we look into every guy on the list."
He had a point. But something stopped Nicky from brushing this off, a gut feeling gnawing at her like teeth. Nicky's gut feeling had never steered her wrong before. She knew that they couldn't afford to overlook anything, especially not when it came to finding the missing girls.
"We should at least look into him," she said firmly. She quickly did a reverse image search on his profile picture, and it came back with no matches. But that didn't mean it was real.
She wrote back to him: "Surprised to see someone like me on here? What does that mean?" she typed, hitting send.
Within seconds, Jason replied. "Oh, you know, someone as beautiful as you. You don't seem like the type to need a dating app."
Nicky rolled her eyes. This was the same kind of generic flattery that every guy on these apps used. But she had to keep up the conversation if she wanted to find out more.
"Well, I'm just trying to keep my options open," she typed back. "You interested in meeting up?"
She waited with bated breath for his reply. Then: "Sounds like something a cop would say," he replied, "or a fed."
Nicky's heart sank into her stomach.
She looked at Ken, who wore the same panicked expression.
Nicky had chosen a photo that should at least partially hide what she looked like. Sure, there was information about her online, but she wouldn't expect someone on a dating app all the way in Ohio to find her. And this photo was nowhere else on the internet. Unless he did a deep dive and happened to come up with her identity. But why would he do that? Unless he had something significant to hide.
"What makes you think I'm a fed?" she typed back. "That seems like a weird thing to say."
Seconds ticked on. Nicky's pulse thrummed in her throat.
Jason never replied.
"Shit," she cursed, standing. "Ken, this could be him. We need to trace him."
"How? The messages are encrypted."
"We'll try to see where the email was made," Nicky said, taking out her phone to call Grace.
Grace picked up on the second ring. "Nicky, what's up?"
"We need you to trace an email for us," Nicky said, quickly explaining the situation. "Can you do it?"
"Of course I can," Grace replied confidently. "Send me the email and I'll get right on it."
Nicky quickly forwarded the email to Grace's personal email address. "Thanks, Grace. I owe you one."
"Just give me one minute." Nicky held her breath, hoping that this time, something good might come out of this.
As they waited for Grace's response, Nicky couldn't help but feel a sense of unease wash over her. She knew that the road ahead would be long and difficult, but she couldn't shake the feeling that they were getting closer to finding the missing girls. Then, Grace said, "I traced the email to an IP address outside of town, but it's weird... it looks like the address is coming from an abandoned mental health hospital."
Nicky's heart raced. An abandoned mental health hospital? It was the perfect place for someone to hide and carry out their twisted plans. She knew they had to act fast.
"Thanks, Grace," Nicky said. "Send me the address."
"Got it."
Nicky hung up and met Ken's eyes. "An abandoned mental hospital?" Ken repeated, his voice laced with disbelief. "Did I hear that right?"
"That's what she said," Nicky replied, still trying to wrap her head around it. "We need to get there right away."
Ken nodded, quickly gathering his things. "Let's go."
***
Nicky stepped out of her car, taking in the sight of the abandoned mental health hospital, bathed in the midday sun. It was surrounded by tall trees and tangled weeds, with broken glass scattered across the grounds. The walls were cracked and covered in ivy, and the paint had long since peeled away. The windows were boarded up, and the large front door hung open, creaking in the wind. The silence was eerie, a reminder that this place had been forgotten for so long.
"You sure this is the place?" Ken asked, stepping out of the car beside her.
Nicky nodded, her eyes scanning the area for any sign of life.
"I'm sure. Grace tracked the email to this location," she said, her voice tight with tension. "We need to be cautious. There's no telling what we might find in there."
They made their way toward the entrance, their footsteps crunching on the broken glass. As they got closer, Nicky noticed the graffiti on the walls, vulgar words and crude drawings that only added to the feeling of foreboding.
"I don't like this," Ken muttered, his hand straying toward his gun.
Nicky didn't blame him. She had her own weapon tucked into the waistband of her jeans, ready to be drawn at a moment's notice.
They stepped inside, the darkness swallowing them up. The air was stale and musty, and the silence was only broken by the sound of their footsteps echoing through the halls.
Nicky switched on her flashlight, casting a beam of light ahead of them. The walls were covered in peeling wallpaper, and cobwebs hung from the ceiling. It felt like they had stepped into a nightmare. As they made their way through the hospital, Nicky's heart pounded in her chest. They didn't know what they were up against or if the kidnapper was hiding in the shadows. The air was musty and stale, with a faint scent of decay. The hallway was dark, with only a few shafts of light filtering in from the boarded-up windows. They walked down the corridor, their eyes scanning for any movement.
The deeper they got into the hospital, the darker it became. With the windows mostly boarded up, the sunlight could barely penetrate.
Nicky's flashlight was their only source of light now, casting eerie shadows on the walls.
Suddenly, they heard a noise. It sounded like a door slamming shut, followed by footsteps. Nicky's heart lurched into her throat. They had to move quickly.
She motioned to Ken, and together they crept down the hallway, their guns drawn.
Someone was here.
The silence was oppressive, only broken by their breathing and footsteps. Nicky's senses were on high alert, listening for any sound out of place.
Suddenly, they heard a noise coming from down the hall. Nicky raised her hand, signaling for Ken to stop. They both stood still, listening intently. The noise grew louder, and Nicky could make out the sound of someone shuffling around.
Ken moved forward. Nicky followed closely behind. They came to a door that was slightly ajar. The sound of movement came from inside. Ken nodded to Nicky, and she readied herself for whatever they might find inside.
With a swift movement, Ken pushed the door open, his gun trained on whoever was inside. Nicky's flashlight beam was right behind him, illuminating the dusty room. It was empty.
Nicky's heart sank. She had sworn she'd heard movement, and yet... Suddenly, she heard a faint noise coming from behind a pile of boxes in the corner of the room. Nicky motioned for Ken to follow her, and they cautiously moved toward the sound. As they got closer, Nicky could make out a shape huddled behind the boxes. She held out her hand, signaling for Ken to stay back as she approached the figure.
"Hello?" she called out, her voice echoing in the empty room.
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