"There was no loss of property, and the safes were intact. The killer's goal was clear: they were out to wipe out the family. So now the question is, what connection exists between these two families?" Jack directed his question at Garcia.
"We've only found one small link so far. Both families had someone who worked as a soccer coach at the local middle school," Garcia said, looking somewhat frustrated.
"But the Fagan family didn't have any children, right?" Emily asked.
Garcia nodded. "That's true, but they had a goddaughter. Kelly Fagan was the coach of her team."
Rossi chimed in, his tone slightly mocking, "Both victims were from Europe and were soccer coaches? Isn't that a bit interesting?"
Hotch, on the other hand, responded seriously. "Maybe they knew each other before?"
"There's another issue—there's an eerie silence from the media. That's very unusual. Even after we got involved, no media outlet reached out to me. This is the least gratifying case I've worked on since joining the BAU," JJ said while handing a few napkins to Reid, who was eating messily, as if taking care of her little brother.
Jack added, "I contacted Taylor Kelly, and she confirmed that there's a force working behind the scenes to suppress the news. She needs a bit more time, but we should have more information by tomorrow at the latest."
Reid, who had been staring at his computer screen silently until JJ handed him the napkins, finally snapped back to reality.
"I just finished going through the numbers stored on the phones of both families. I found a shared contact, but no call records between them."
JJ turned her head, surprised. "You did that while eating? You just skimmed through the numbers."
Reid shrugged. "If Garcia organized the data into a table, the computer would recognize it even faster than I did."
Everyone was speechless. Garcia opened her laptop. "Okay, give me the number."
"703-555-0118. The owner of the number is Byron Delaney, 64 years old. His wife, Grace Delaney, passed away last year, and his children don't live nearby. Interestingly, he's British."
Jack glanced at the address and the time. "Send me the address. Emily and I can swing by on our way back."
—
Though they said it was on the way, the drive wasn't exactly close. Los Angeles, nicknamed "the city of traffic jams," was hitting the peak of rush hour at 8 p.m. The "Mammoth" was crawling, taking half an hour to cover less than two kilometers.
Light rain began to drizzle outside, giving Jack the feeling that he was back in the watery Jiangnan towns of his past life.
As Jack hummed a tune, albeit out of tune, Emily wasn't in a good mood. She realized she had been living at Jack's house for almost three months now.
"Why are you always so optimistic?" she asked, gnawing at her nails, clearly agitated. Jack shook his head in exasperation. "Where did that strong woman, the one who never lost sleep over a case, disappear to?"
"She drowned in your oversized bathtub," Emily retorted, rolling her eyes and giving a biting response.
Even though she knew Jack had probably done all sorts of things in that bathtub and had cleaned it thoroughly, she couldn't help but feel uncomfortable every time she soaked in it. But in the rare cold winter of Los Angeles, Emily couldn't resist the allure of the warm tub. Soaking in it for an hour every day, enveloped in the scent of oak, was the only luxury she allowed herself to relax her frayed nerves. It was also one of the reasons she convinced herself to continue staying at Jack's house.
"Have your 'JTF-12' friends found any new leads?" Jack asked.
Emily shook her head. "For safety reasons, we agreed to only contact each other once a week unless there's an emergency. Our last contact was five days ago. They're still trying to gather intel on Doyle through their former intelligence agencies, but so far, no luck."
Her former "JTF-12" team had been a multinational group of agents. Jack found it hard to believe that the intelligence agencies of the UK, France, or Germany would be so incompetent. The only explanation was that relationships had cooled down. After Emily left and joined the FBI, the others also retired from their original agencies.
As a result, their network had gradually lost its influence.
It's natural. If one of them were killed, the intelligence agencies would surely retaliate—perhaps by hunting Doyle again or targeting his resurgent terrorist group. But before that, spending resources to protect a few "retired agents" who were no longer useful? That would be asking too much of bureaucrats. Yes, official intelligence agencies in any country are still bureaucracies.
Never expect a bureaucratic agency to react quickly or proactively. Emily and her friends understood this well. And Doyle? He understood it even better.
Did Doyle want revenge? Of course. After being interrogated and tortured in a secret prison for seven years, his motivation for survival might well have been to take revenge on those who put him there—and on the countries behind them.
But was Doyle in a hurry? A man who could endure seven years of torture in prison and ultimately escape wouldn't lack patience.
That's where the contradiction lies. After his escape, Doyle should've gone into hiding, quietly rebuilding his strength. Instead, he chose to make bold moves, like having someone break into Emily's home and spook her.
This behavior, unless driven by madness, could only mean one thing: Emily had something—or knew something—that Doyle desperately wanted.
What was the secret? It didn't matter. Whether it was Rossi, Hotch, or Jack, none of them asked Emily directly. When she felt it was necessary to reveal it, she would.
With the FBI—the USA's most powerful counterterrorism force—behind them, the BAU always had the upper hand. The longer they waited, the more the odds tilted in their favor.
And so, Emily was stuck close to Jack, while the BAU team solved cases and celebrated Christmas. With each passing day, they waited for the impatient Doyle to make his move.
The situation mirrored the current weather. As the information from all sides came together, the sense of an approaching storm grew, making Emily, in the eye of it all, increasingly uneasy.
"What do you make of these people?" Emily asked, after biting her nails for a while.
"Huh?" Jack was momentarily puzzled before realizing what she meant.
"They acted so contradictory. They had the ability to stage the scene as an accidental fire, but they deliberately made it attention-grabbing, as if..."
"As if they were sending a threat?" Emily cut him off, stating it plainly.
"You think this is related to you?" Jack, of course, understood her concern.
"Is it possible they're trying to lure the BAU into a trap?"
Jack thought Emily's theory wasn't impossible, but it seemed unlikely. "You think Doyle did it? Maybe. But what's his goal? To lure the BAU in and wipe us out?"
Emily opened her mouth, then sighed and shrugged, as if even she realized her idea might be far-fetched. "I hope I'm overthinking it."
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