Page 64 of Missing

When Agent Jones arrived a few minutes later, he introduced Agent Maxwell as he greeted everyone.

Agent Maxwell was a short, serious woman with thick, curly red hair and piercing blue eyes. She was nice enough as she shook each of our hands, but I had the feeling she was a take-no-shit kind of woman. She was a profiler, and a member of the special victims unit, so we asked her to look at the tapes to see if anything stood out to her.

She watched the grainy videos over my shoulder, then gave us her assessment.

“There isn’t much to go on. Despite the fact she hid her face, I don’t get the feeling she’s a criminal mastermind. I can’t quite put my finger on it…” she trailed off, tapping her chin.

“I trust your gut,” Jones said to her, then addressed the rest of us. “We’ll keep working with the worst-case scenario as we plan.”

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

I checked on Beth to make sure she was still doing okay. Or as okay as she could be while searching for her missing son. While Maxwell watched the footage of the mystery woman again.

John wanted lists of every gas station and home security camera, as well as the license plate number of every vehicle at the park. It’d take a while, but once we had the plates, we could use them to pull the owner’s driver’s licenses and look for a match to our mystery woman.

It didn’t take us long to compile a list of the businesses in a six-block radius around the park.

John made sure we all had pictures of Chase before assigning each team a portion of the list. I’d be working with Jack, AJ with John, and Jaime with one of our part-timers, Dean, a retiredDallas police officer. Eric and Campbell would be in later and help where needed.

We went from station to station, starting with the ones closest to the location where she'd entered and left the park. She hadn’t used the same street to leave the park as she had to enter it, but they were close enough for us to triangulate where she might have parked.

We focused on that quadrant, and would work our way out from there.

It wasn’t always easy getting shop owners to cooperate, but the threat of FBI involvement was enough to convince them.

Less than two hours later, Jamie and Dean got lucky. A station, a few blocks from the park, had hidden outdoor cameras. While review the video, they recognized her hat as she gassed up. We now had a clear image of her license plate.

Not her face though. We wouldn’t need it if the owner of the vehicle matched the general description of the woman in the video.

When they called it in, we all raced back to the office, eager to start looking.

By the time we got back to the office, Jones had already used the license plate number to identify the woman and was doing a deep dive into her background.This is why we wanted their help. I had to hack into a secure government site to get information he had legal access to.

It wasn’t hard for Maxwell to build a profile based on the information they’d found. Jill Smith, thirty-two, had lost her husband and her son in a car accident seven months ago. “She’s been treated for mental illness most of her adult life. It’s likely the loss sent her over the edge.”

“That poor woman.” Beth whispered as she wiped away tears.

That was why I loved her; despite the pain and fear Smith had caused her, Beth sympathized with her. It shouldn’thave surprised me. Beth was a remarkable woman: caring, passionate, compassionate, and so much stronger than she realized.

Maxwell showed us a picture of Smith’s son. There was a collective gasp in the room; his resemblance to Chase was uncanny.

Beth covered her heart with her hands, sympathy and fear written all over her face. “My God, they could be brothers,” she whispered.

“Given what I read, I believe Mrs. Smith is trying to replace her late son with Chase.” Maxwell looked around the room, hesitation written all over her face.

“Go on.” John encouraged her.

“I don’t want to get your hopes up,” she addressed Beth, “but I don’t think she’ll hurt him. There’s no indication she was a bad mother. And while we can’t rule it out altogether, I don’t think she’ll harm him. The evidence suggests she’s had a psychotic break and believes Chase is her son.”

Beth wobbled as Maxwell’s words sunk in, so I put my arm around her to steady her. She turned in my arms, buried her face against my chest and cried in relief. I could hear her thanking God Chase would be okay.

Looking over her head, I made eye contact with Maxwell, trying to judge her confidence in the profile. She was looking at Beth with compassion in her eyes, and there was nothing there to make me doubt her faith in her skills. For my peace of mind, I looked at Jones for confirmation. It felt like he was reading my mind as he held eye contact.

“I’ll say it again, I trust Maxwell’s instincts and her skill set,” Jones answered my unasked question.

“That’s good enough for me,” John said, looking around the room. If any of us had questions, doubts, or something to add—now was the time to do it. “Bring your laptops to the conference room.” He gave the order, then took Beth aside.

I waited as he talked to Beth, offering what little support I could.

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