She said, “I’m okay.” That’s all.
I said, “Who is this?”
She said, “I’m okay.”
I wanted to keep her talking, so I asked her name—but
then, just like that, she was gone.
This was a brilliant move on Chris Watts’s part. It was a
threat, teasing us with the woman’s voice, but subtly and
indirectly. It was a way for the bad guy to let us know he
was calling the shots on his end of the phone without
directly escalating the situation. He’d given us a “proof of
life,” confirming that he did indeed have hostages with him
who were in decent enough shape to talk on the phone, but
stopped short of allowing us to gather any useful
information.
He’d managed to take back a measure of control.
MIRRORING
Chris Watts came back on the phone trying to act like
nothing had happened. He was a little rattled, that’s for sure,
but now he was talking.
“We’ve identified every car on the street and talked to all
the owners except one,” I said to Watts. “We’ve got a van
out here, a blue and gray van. We’ve been able to get a
handle on the owners of all of the vehicles except this one in
particular. Do you know anything about it?”
“The other vehicle’s not out there because you guys
chased my driver away . . .” he blurted.
“We chased your driver away?” I mirrored.