Stolen Child (Coastal Fury Book 13), Matt Lincoln [ebooks children's books free TXT] 📗

head at him. “It’s only been a couple of hours. Something big would have to happen for them to change their minds so quickly.”

I glanced over at Diane again as I said this, and I realized that there was a glimmer of hope left in me that something big had actually happened. I searched her face for any sign that there was news about the Hollands, that the Interpol guy had caught them red-handed, even that this case was done and over with and Scotland was stealing our perps right out from under us. But her face was unreadable, aside from the tiredness that was still there.

“No, nothing like that,” she said, shaking her head weakly.

“What, then?” I asked, a sense of foreboding building in my stomach.

“Dammit, the lead fell through!” Holm exclaimed, throwing his arms up in the air in frustration. “The fisherman guy was full of it, and it wasn’t the Hollands after all. We’re back to square one. That’s it, isn’t it?”

My eyes widened, and I stared at Diane, searching for any hint that he was right.

“No, it’s not that either,” she snapped, giving him a fierce look. “And it would serve you well not to go jumping to conclusions so often, Agent Holm.”

“Right, sorry,” he muttered, just like I had moments before, staring down at his knees.

Everyone in that office knew that more often than not, Holm’s gut served him and MBLIS well. But I shared her exasperation at that moment. I just wanted her to get to the point, and Holm was slowing things down.

“Look, it doesn’t have anything to do with the Hollands at all,” Diane said, wincing as she said the words as if she was anticipating us to respond poorly to this. “I’m going to have to send you two out on another assignment.”

Holm’s jaw dropped open, and he just gaped at her, for once at a loss for words. I was not, however.

“What? A new case?” I asked, floored.

Muñoz had been right after all. There was another case for us to work, and that meant that it had to be big. Big enough for Diane to look even more tired than she was already and for Holm and me to get sent away from Miami when they needed us here more than ever.

“Yes,” she said, pursing her lips. “And it’s a big one.”

“Come on, why can’t Birn and Muñoz go?” Holm complained. “We’re the ones who’ve been working the Holland case since the beginning. We shouldn’t be sent off when we’re in the middle of it.”

I didn’t disagree, but I was also eager to hear what this new case was. It had to be big for Diane to pull us right now. I hadn’t been lying when I said that I would prefer a real case to looking through files all day, though I did wish it had come at another time, and not on the day when there was finally some movement with the Hollands, even if it was on the other side of the ocean.

“That would’ve been my first choice, as well, but the two of you were requested personally by the FBI,” Diane said, wincing again as she said it. She didn’t like this any more than Holm, I realized. She didn’t want us to leave her alone with the FBI agents in the middle of the Holland case, but this was more important than what she wanted.

“The FBI?” I repeated. “But it doesn’t have to do with the Hollands? How does that work?”

“Annoying coincidence,” Diane sighed. “More than annoying. It’s dangerous and upsetting. A government employee’s child has been abducted.”

There was silence in the room then. We all knew that none of our concerns about the Hollands, about the FBI, about Interpol, or anything else mattered when it came to a kid.

“Was it a stranger kidnapping?” I asked at long last, my stomach sinking all the way to the floor.

“Looks that way,” Diane confirmed.

“When?” Holm asked, leaning forward again in his chair now, his eyes no longer excited but still highly attentive.

“Early this morning,” she said. “At a mall in North Carolina. The FBI was originally put on the case because the family is from out of state, and the mother works for the CDC. The whole thing’s a mess.”

“So how does MBLIS come into it?” I asked, shaking my head in confusion. North Carolina was a coastal state, sure, but the perp would have to be foreign, or the kid would have to be taken out of the country somehow for this to fall under our jurisdiction.

“That’s what I’ve just been on the phone about,” Diane explained. “A Coast Guard ship thinks they spotted the kid and the perps who took him out on the ocean, headed into international waters.”

“Wait, did you just say perps?” Holm asked, his face turning white. “As in more than one?”

“That’s right,” Diane said with a nod. “It’s kind of a weird case. I don’t know the full details yet, but there are indications that it was a lone-wolf situation, but also that it was more coordinated, and it can’t be both.”

I pressed my back against the door, mulling this over. That didn’t make a lot of sense. But then again, they wouldn’t call us if it wasn’t a tough case. Not right now, anyway.

“I’m guessing it’s all over the news?” I asked.

“All over it,” Diane confirmed darkly with a curt nod. “Local, national, you name it, this kid’s face is on it, which is one good thing, at least. It’ll make it easier to find him in theory, anyway.”

“There’s no indication of who these people are that took him?” Holm asked. “Or why? Do we have descriptions?”

“We have some security footage from the mall,” Diane explained. “Got a good look at one of the perps, a profile from the side. The other guy was dressed up in a ski mask and gloves and the whole deal. Had a gun, too.”

“That… doesn’t make any sense,” I said, furrowing my brow at