Caribbean Rescue (Coastal Fury Book 16), Matt Lincoln [best book recommendations .txt] 📗

“Finger?” Holm furrowed his eyebrows at us before it clicked. “Wait, the skeleton we found in that wreck? You were talking about it without me? Wait, what did you find? No, crap, nevermind that now, Diane needs to see us.”

“Really? I asked, genuinely surprised to hear that.

“Yeah.” He nodded. “She’s got a case for us. Apparently, it’s a weird one and also urgent since there’s a kid involved.”

“Oh, no,” Bonnie murmured behind me. I could understand her feelings. It was always especially bad whenever kids were involved.

“Alright,” I replied, just slightly disappointed. Of course, as soon as I started to actually get somewhere with my search for the Dragon’s Rogue, we’d immediately get a new case. I wasn’t too upset, though, since I’d been itching for some action for almost two weeks now.

Diane had a serious expression on her face when we stepped into her office a minute later.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“I need you two to head down to the police station,” she explained right away. “We’ve got a bit of a mess on our hands with this one.”

“What kind of mess?” Holm asked warily.

“Take your pick,” Diane deadpanned. “I’ve got the FBI fighting with us over jurisdiction, and I just spent an hour convincing an overprotective Social Services agent to allow us to speak with the child involved.”

“Wait, what exactly happened?” I asked.

“Sorry,” Diane grumbled as she massaged the bridge of her nose. “I’ve spent all morning on the phone dealing with everything, and it’s got me all scrambled up. Three days ago, a five-year-old boy was found wandering around, alone, on a beach here in Miami. He was malnourished, severely dehydrated, and extremely sunburned. For the past three days, the police and FBI have been scrambling to locate the child’s relatives and figure out what happened to him. Then, yesterday, there was an unusual development in the case. They now believe that the child came here, with his mother, from Turks and Caicos.”

“Turks and Caicos?” I repeated. “So that’s why we’re being called in now?”

“I don’t understand, though,” Holm interjected. “If they found the kid’s mom, then what’s the issue?”

“The issue is that they haven’t found her,” Diane replied. “What’s more, she’s our main victim here.”

“What?” Holm and I both asked in unison, twin looks of confusion etched across our faces.

“I told you,” she muttered bitterly. “It’s a mess.”

6

Olivia

Olivia woke up early the next day, intent on speaking with Eddy once again. Speaking with Barbara Newark yesterday had been a bust, and until they could find another lead to follow, the only thing she could do was try to pull whatever information she could from the boy. Mrs. Abernathy had given Olivia her contact information and the address of the home where Eddy would be staying for the time being, and Olivia wanted to do right by him as quickly as she possibly could.

She had just finished getting dressed when her phone rang. She frowned when she saw it was her director calling.

“Hello?” she answered.

“Agent Hastings,” Director Evans greeted her. “There’s someone here to see you. A Ms. Christina Newark. She says she might have information about the missing child case.”

Olivia felt as though her heart had just skipped a beat. Had she heard him correctly? The woman she’d spoken to on the phone had really come to Miami all the way from Pennsylvania?

“I’ll be right there,” she replied before ending the call.

With her earlier plans abandoned, she rushed down to the FBI office.

Olivia had known that something wasn’t adding up yesterday after her disastrous phone call with Barbara Newark. The fact that her daughter Christina had come all the way here proved that there was more to the story.

She headed straight to her boss’s office the moment she made it in. Even before she made it to the door, she could see the young woman sitting inside.

“Director Evans,” Olivia greeted her boss with a nod as she strode into his office.

“Agent Hastings.” He nodded back before turning to look at the young woman sitting on the couch pressed against the far wall of the office. “This is Christina Newark.”

The first thing Olivia noticed was the girl’s eyes. They were the exact stunning shade of icy blue that Eddy’s had been. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that the two were somehow related.

“I spoke to you on the phone yesterday,” Olivia stated as she reached down to shake the girl’s hand.

“Yeah, I remember.” She muttered shyly.

“I appreciate you coming all this way,” Olivia said as she sat down in one of the chairs adjacent to the couch. “May I ask why you wanted to see me?”

“Oh, it wasn’t all that far.” Christina shrugged. “I go to Jacksonville State, so it was only a few hours’ drive. And I just couldn’t stop thinking about what happened yesterday.”

“You mean our talk?” Olivia prompted.

“Yeah, that,” Christina replied. “But also my mom. About an hour after we talked, she called me screaming. She was completely hysterical, crying and yelling and asking me if it was true that I had spoken to you. It was all so crazy that I just wanted to come and talk to you.”

“Well, I’m glad you did,” Olivia replied. “Did your mother say anything else about the boy?”

“No.” Christina shook her head. “Or, if she did, I didn’t manage to catch it. It was hard to understand what she was saying, to be honest. Ever since my dad died, and I left for college, it seems like the smallest things send her over the edge.”

Olivia felt a little bad now. She hadn’t intended to upset the poor woman, but she had to do what she had to do to get to the bottom of this case.

“Anyway,” Christina mumbled nervously. “You said this kid was, like, related to me, right?”

“Yes, we think so.” Olivia nodded slowly. “Why?”

“Well, can I meet him?” she muttered meekly. “I mean, I dunno what my mom’s deal is or why she’s lying since she's