Chapter 314: Yes, It Is Me!
"The trigger has been found!"
On the other end of the phone, Chuck and the others heard Gregg's father's words, and Gideon sighed.
Their BAU studied criminal psychology and came up with a theory.
That is, any criminal, especially a serial killer, has a crucial trigger that prompts them to commit crimes.
This not only relates to why they commit crimes, but also to the crime pattern, allowing professionals like them to track down and arrest them.
Otherwise, if crimes are committed randomly and accidentally, even they would be helpless.
"Is Nikki that kind of person?"
Chuck didn't react to this and looked directly at Lisa, the Texas girl who seemed to be deep in thought.
Although bachelor parties originated in the West, it was not the West that truly made them infamous in recent decades.
The vast number of horrifyingly depraved behaviors will be exposed.
"This."
Lisa hesitated instinctively, but when she met Chuck's gaze, she nodded. "Nikki can be very wild sometimes... that's why I left her."
"Very good!"
Chuck nodded expressionlessly.
"I also think it was a good thing I left her."
Lisa, the Texas girl, was greatly encouraged by Chuck's words and became more talkative.
"But now that Nikki is captured because of this, maybe I should have stayed and tried to persuade her more, instead of just leaving."
"People with fixed values are very difficult to persuade, and falling into bad behavior can happen in an instant, so staying probably wouldn't have done Nikki any good, and you might have even been captured with her."
Dr. Reid couldn't help but say. "Besides, Chuck's 'good' doesn't mean praising you for leaving her."
"Isn't that right?"
Lisa, the Texas girl, was taken aback and couldn't help but look at Chuck.
"Not mainly."
Chuck said bluntly. "It's good that you left this bad influence, but even better is that this pattern shows Mark Gregg hasn't completely lost control."
"What do you mean?"
Lisa, the Texas girl, was a little dizzy, feeling both joy and worry and confusion.
"Chuck means that if your friend Nikki is the same type who likes freedom and partying, like Gregg's mother and the other four murdered women, then Gregg is still maintaining his control,"
Dr. Reid explained. "This kind of Gregg would only seek out this type of woman; he won't completely go insane and start random killing sprees for now."
"I disagree with that!"
On the other end of the phone, Morgan, who had already left Gregg's father's house, immediately retorted.
"Perhaps those women enjoy partying, and some are immoral, but that doesn't mean their lives are unimportant."
"Morgan, nobody thinks their lives are unimportant,"
Gideon reminded him. "Dr. Wolfe is only analyzing the current situation from the most rational perspective.
Gregg is still in control, so he'll specifically target these types of women and keep the timeframe to 36 hours.
But once he loses control, his targets won't be limited to these types of women anymore; they'll be all the women he sees, and the timeframe will be greatly shortened.
You should know what that means.
So Dr. Wolfe is right—this is indeed good news!"
"I know,"
Morgan could only concede verbally. He did know it was good news for most women and for them to solve the case and catch Gregg.
But he had a feeling that Chuck wasn't speaking from an absolutely rational perspective.
It was more like he was expressing the view that women like Nikki brought this on themselves.
It was an intuition.
Now his colleagues and superiors all supported Chuck, and he had no evidence and couldn't speak out, which felt very frustrating.
As for why he couldn't continue speaking...
Because if this gets brought up, colleagues and superiors will likely assume his dislike for Chuck is directed at him or stems from personal bias.
After all, his own carefree nature makes him sympathetic to such women.
Even if Chuck's words are rational, hearing them would still sound harsh and uncomfortable to him—a human weakness.
And the BAU colleagues, skilled at profiling, easily make this connection.
"Alright, let's continue discussing the case,"
Gideon, the BAU's spiritual leader, changed the subject. "Now we know who he is and are monitoring his credit cards and all his information.
He only had $400 in cash on him, and with Nikki, he couldn't have left by plane or other public transportation, so he had to drive and stay in a motel."
"Hopefully he didn't go to Orlando,"
Dr. Reid chimed in. "The number of motels there is second only to Las Vegas. If he went there, finding him in time would be extremely difficult."
"Don't you have any screening methods?"
Lisa, the Texas girl, couldn't help but ask. "There are two of them, a man and a woman. Nikki has been captured, so she'll probably rarely show her face. This information should be enough to screen most motels, right?"
"That's the ideal scenario,"
Chuck glanced at her. "The reality is that motels are almost always cash-based, designed for convenience, secrecy, and difficulty in tracing. Almost everyone registers under a fake name, and the owners aren't necessarily cooperative.
But you're right.
When holding press conferences and notifying local police along the route, we can remind them that the suspects are registered as a man and a woman, and the woman rarely shows herself.
First, even if she's being threatened, her presence would likely reveal something, risking being noticed.
Second, she's undoubtedly been through a lot and wouldn't appear normally in public.
In such cases, prioritize reporting to the police and investigation; this will greatly reduce our workload.
Also, after his identity was exposed, Gregg was able to calmly continue his crimes according to his established pattern, demonstrating a psychological fortitude far beyond the average person.
Furthermore, he's adept at disguise and gaining trust, and motels are extremely confined spaces. If you can't see the woman, don't be fooled by lies like she's taking a bath."
"Garcia will do her best to track online, and we will also try our best to have local police check motels along the route using this information."
Gideon answered, "JJ, you heard Dr. Wolfe's analysis. Hold a press conference immediately, and remember to remind everyone."
"Yes, sir!"
JJ, who was in charge of external relations and media liaison, replied on the other end of the line.
"Hopefully, we can find them within 12 hours. Otherwise, once 12 hours have passed... he's alone; he can change his appearance, and $400 is enough for a plane ticket to anywhere in the country,"
Gideon sighed.
"He won't go to Texas!"
Chuck said bluntly.
"Right!"
Lisa, the Texas girl, immediately chimed in. "As long as he has a shred of sanity left, he won't go to Texas."
The strong sense of justice in Texas doesn't just refer to Texas men; sometimes women are too.
If Gregg rashly goes to Texas to hunt, who knows who will end up hunting whom?
"I really hope he suddenly disappears,"
the more sentimental JJ, who was in charge of external relations for the BAU, suddenly said on the other end of the line.
"JJ!"
BAU Supervisory Agent Hotchner called out to remind her.
"I'm sorry."
JJ immediately apologized. "I just hope that no more women will be victimized. The media is here, I'll go and release the news now!"
After saying that, she hung up the phone.
"We all wonder, so why did she apologize?"
Lisa, the Texas girl, asked, puzzled.
Everyone remained silent.
"They suspect someone is acting as a vigilante, specifically hunting down these serial killers,"
Chuck bluntly stated when Lisa looked at him, unable to get an explanation.
"Ah!"
Lisa exclaimed in surprise. "There are vigilantes like that? Really?"
"We're only suspecting it right now,"
Dr. Reid, unable to withstand Lisa's gaze, knew it was classified information and shouldn't be discussed, but after Chuck began, he spoke up anyway.
"Alright, Reid,"
BAU Supervisory Agent Hotchner interrupted. "Don't pin your hopes on such a vague, suspected existence. And if such a person truly exists, we are the FBI; we must rigorously investigate and crack down on such illegal activities and individuals."
"Yes,"
Dr. Reid replied weakly.
"Lisa signed a confidentiality agreement,"
Chuck said calmly.
"Alright, everyone get back to what you're doing. Our most important task right now is to find Gregg and Nikki,"
Gideon reminded them before hanging up.
The conference call ended.
Dr. Reid continued driving, glancing in the rearview mirror at Lisa, the Texas girl, who still seemed very interested. He looked at Chuck and asked, "Chuck, what do you think of this vigilante role?"
"I think it's a thankless task. Vigilantes won't save America!"
Chuck replied expressionlessly.
"..."
Dr. Reid was speechless. "Even so, it would be great if this vigilante could actually transform into a superhero like in comics."
Seeing Lisa's confusion, he explained, "In comics, superheroes used to sometimes kill people directly when they encountered vicious criminals.
But later, to promote appropriate values and legal perspectives, superheroes gradually adopted a no-killing philosophy, handing over the criminals they caught to the police.
As for vigilantes in our reality, it would be great if they could hand over the criminals to us after catching them, instead of letting them 'disappear.'"
"Spencer, you're still too naive,"
Chuck shook his head. "The reason comic book superheroes have gradually stopped killing is because the writers want to save effort. If they create a classic villain and kill him off after one incident, they have to come up with another one, which is too time-consuming and mentally taxing.
But if they don't kill the classic villain no matter how much harm he causes, even if he cruelly murders the protagonist's family, then the character can continue indefinitely.
Then there's the inevitable prison break, repeated confrontations, maximizing his value.
If they want to redeem him in the future, they can explore the complexity of human nature and make another profit.
But in reality, if the police were to arrest and release all sorts of heinous criminals repeatedly, causing countless innocent deaths, do you think the public would accept that?
One or two such criminals might only be a challenge to the public's nerves, leaving them helpless but with no choice but to accept it.
But if such criminals were to fill Arkham Asylum like in the comics, the public would most likely riot, storming Arkham Asylum to eliminate these threats completely.
The reason this hasn't happened is because the police have done most of the work on-site by emptying their magazines, preventing them from ever surviving long enough to fill Arkham Asylum and escape frequently."
"I know,"
Dr. Reid said with a somewhat helpless expression, "but the vigilantes' practice of making criminals disappear at will is still somewhat problematic."
"That's why I say being a vigilante is thankless work,"
Chuck said calmly. "If such a vigilante really appeared, given the opportunity, do you think you would rather arrest the criminals or abandon the criminals and focus all your efforts on hunting down the vigilante?"
"The vigilante,"
Dr. Reid said with a wry smile.
As a psychological profiler, he was all too familiar with the behavioral logic of law enforcement agencies like the FBI.
If a criminal and a vigilante were both in front of them, the vigilante would be apprehended first.
Even if this vigilante was, as he hoped, a friendly neighborhood hero like Spider-Man who only catches criminals and hands them over to the police without harming them, it wouldn't be an exception.
For this reason, law enforcement agencies would even be willing to forgo apprehending the most vicious criminals.
This kind of plot has appeared more than once in comics and movies, but it's never something the screenwriters imagined out of thin air.
Orlando.
Inside a motel.
A waiter knocked on a room door. "Room service!"
After several knocks, the door opened, and a man wrapped in a large bath towel opened it.
"We received your call about cleaning up yesterday's dinner, Mr. Gregg,"
the waiter said.
"Yes, please come in."
The man in the towel let the waiter in.
"Is everything alright?"
The waiter noticed that only one of the two steaks on the trolley had been eaten and immediately asked.
After all, service satisfaction affected his tip.
"My steak is tender and juicy, medium-rare is my favorite way to cook it,"
the man in the towel chuckled. "But my wife doesn't think so. She hopes a hot bath will make her feel better."
He then called out towards the bathroom, "Honey, are you alright in there?"
Without waiting for a response, he smiled at the waiter. "Sounds very comfortable, thank you, Oscar."
Oscar, the waiter, happily accepted the generous tip from the man in the towel, packed up his things, and left.
The man in the towel smiled, glanced at the television, and saw a beautiful woman in a well-tailored suit introducing him to everyone, with his photo beside her. He smiled dismissively.
Because he was skilled in disguise and psychology, with a little makeup, ordinary people would never associate him with the serial killer on television.
Then he heard the beautiful woman say, "The suspect, Mark Gregg, is a master of disguise. Two people registered at the motel, a man and a woman. The woman cannot appear in public..."
His smile froze instantly. This news was being broadcast across all channels; it was already a local hot topic, so he wasn't surprised the waiter would see it soon.
With such a clear indication of his disguise technique, especially his arrogant use of his real surname, which might not have been easily noticed before, it would now definitely arouse suspicion.
Just as he was thinking of quickly stopping his torment of the woman in the bathtub, who was helplessly submerged and sedated, drowning her and leaving, he heard police sirens outside.
Clearly, the local police were also investigating the motel.
The man in the towel walked to the window, glanced outside, and saw two police officers approaching.
"Damn it!"
the man in the towel cursed, suppressing his anger. He hesitated for a moment, glanced at the bathroom, but ultimately didn't go in. He grabbed his belongings and started to flee.
He had no choice!
Drowning her was not only a twisted form of revenge but also a release of his own twisted psyche; it would take time.
Having tormented his victim for so long, he was already in a mentally drained state, unable to act with the speed needed.
And having failed to capture his ultimate target, with this one merely being practice, he couldn't accept being captured.
Therefore, he had no choice but to give up and escape immediately.
(End of Chapter)
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