Aria Jackson returned to the car, and her phone received a list of missing persons from her colleague, which she examined one by one.
Bobby and Lionel leaned against the car smoking.
Lionel offered her a cigarette, but Aria Jackson shook her head, "Quit."
Lionel took it back, lit it for himself, took a puff, and laughed to Bobby next to him, "That Janie Jones earlier, she kinda looks like your wife, huh."
"A girl of seventeen or eighteen, don’t joke around," Bobby glanced at him, knowing Lionel was teasing him about his weight again.
Honestly, Bobby wasn’t fat; his physical fitness was not bad. He just had a naturally round face, which made him look chubby.
Janie Jones also had a round face, small eyes, a flat nose, and wasn’t particularly pretty.
Thinking of this, Bobby frowned, "All three of those girls are pretty unattractive."
"Yeah, those Brown Family sisters are darker than , short too, like they’re malnourished," Lionel exhaled a puff of smoke, his tone carrying a faint lancholy.
Having been on cases for a long ti, they were sharper than average; at this mont they fell into a mutual, tacit silence.
Aria also heard their conversation, and the heaviness in her chest felt even more intense, hard to relieve.
After so ti, Lionel’s voice ca again, "I guess we’ve been rciful... so traffickers, the pretty ones get sold, but they don’t spare the ugly ones either; they keep them to harvest their organs."
A sweet tallic taste rose in Aria’s throat; she pressed her lips together, forcing down the discomfort, trying hard to refocus on the list in front of her.
If "许到风前月下无" refers to Artemia Mason, "澈夜万葩玉一本" to Olivia Watson, then the remaining verses must also refer to so other nas.
To avoid Joel Jensen noticing anything, Lauren Jones didn’t dare make it explicit, using mostly homonyms or punning characters. Thus, when Aria Jackson cross-references, she has to repeatedly recite each na to get a result.
After a rough assessnt, she believes the third line of the testant, "我自情疏谁与共," likely refers to a girl nad Mollie Silvers, the fourth line, "爱著鹅黄金缕衣," refers to a girl nad Yvonne Halle, while the fifth line, "你为情多泪亦多," hasn’t matched any na yet.
This is also normal; if the person is in a situation like Lauren Jones, with no parents around and grandparents deceased, even if they disappeared, no one would report it.
Now that the identities are confird, the next steps are finding the missing girls.
As long as they can locate Belinda Anthony or Joel Jensen, they might trace down to find them.
Finding the girls, or Belinda Anthony and Joel Jensen, is beyond what Aria Jackson and her few colleagues can handle alone.
Aria Jackson contemplates how to convince the leaders to open an investigation into this missing person case as a grave human trafficking case.
Belinda Anthony’s sudden disappearance, could it be that she sensed danger and went into hiding on purpose?... If the police have informants in this area, they might catch a lead, but inter-departnt cooperation requires filing a report and applying back at headquarters.
For a mont, Aria’s mind is flooded with thoughts, cluttered and anxious.
Maybe in the minutes she hesitates now, so missing girl is already being trafficked away...
"Let’s head back to the station first." Aria exhaled a long breath, rubbing her temples.
Bobby and Lionel got in the car.
Lionel drove, a half-burnt cigarette in his mouth, heading straight down the open road of the developnt zone.
"Shouldn’t we turn around?" Bobby asked.
"There’s a turn up ahead too; roads in the developnt zone are all connected like this," Lionel said dismissively.
As they drove to the turn ahead, they went so distance and realized there was no exit, so they turned again, only to reach an abandoned construction site, with barricades surrounding the entrance.
Lionel cursed irritably, having no choice but to turn back.
"Wait a minute." Aria suddenly spoke up.
Her spine unintentionally tensed, staring fixedly at the rusted sign outside the factory: Sunny Textile Materials.
"You weep much for love." Aria murmured.
Reviews
All reviews (0)