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

imagine… if something like that happened to my daughter, I’d be screaming bloody murder.”

I glanced over at him in surprise.

“Think I’m too young to have a kid?” he chuckled, arching an eyebrow at me. “Don’t worry. You’re not the only one. At least I’ll still be young when she goes off to college. Any kids of your own?”

“No,” I said. “A little busy with my career, I’m afraid.”

“Same here,” Holm added.

“That’s alright,” Hollister said brightly. “At least you probably get to sleep through the night more often than not.”

We drove on in silence for some time until we arrived at our little coastal destination. I could see the water off in the distance, and I lowered my window to take in the familiar salty air. There was nothing like that smell.

Hollister took his car through the streets of the tiny town, and we passed several shops in a small downtown area and some quaint residential areas with cozy little houses to match the aesthetic of the town itself.

It was very quiet, quieter than I expected even, especially for the afternoon on a hazy early summer day.

“Most of the people pack up and leave?” Holm asked, no doubt thinking the same as me.

“Seems like it,” Hollister remarked. “If they didn’t leave when the first news hit, they did after the shooting at the mall. That seemed to scare everyone into some common sense, at least.”

I did see a number of police cars as we rolled through the town, though, no doubt belonging to officers searching for the missing boy. Even though the Coast Guard believed they spotted him and one of his abductors at sea, it was always possible that it was a mistake, or that the boy was already back on land for some reason. There was no reason to abandon the search on land until we knew for certain where he could be.

Finally, we pulled into a police station, likely the only one in town.

“Here we are,” Hollister said, parking near the front door. “Back to the old grindstone. I’m sure my boss will want to have a word with you before you question the parents or any other witnesses. The FBI agent might be back by now, too.”

“Of course,” I said, nodding to him. “Thank you for picking us up. Hopefully, we’ll run into you again soon.”

“You can count on it,” the young man grinned as he followed us out of the car and opened the door for us. “The chief’s office is right back there. He should be waiting for you. I let him know when you arrived.”

Hollister pointed us in the right direction, and we thanked him again and headed on our way.

Eyes followed us as we made our way through the main desk area. There were a number of officers and detectives there, some of them surely in from neighboring towns, clustered around a whiteboard detailing the case.

I didn’t notice the woman from the pictures who I assumed to be the FBI psychologist anywhere, nor the parents, or anyone who might be the FBI agent. They all had badges that looked more like policemen’s than that of a federal agent’s.

We didn’t stop to talk, and no one talked to us, though I felt a pervasive nervous energy in the room, perhaps accentuated by the cups of coffee and energy drinks that were strewn all over the place. No one was probably going to sleep until this kid was found. Not for long, at least.

The door to the chief’s office was ajar, but I knocked anyway.

“Come in,” a gruff voice called, and Holm and I walked through, closing the door behind us.

Inside, we found a weary-looking man who I would place in his early sixties sitting behind a massive desk piled high with files, not unlike Diane’s at that very moment. The man appeared to have been picking one of his eyebrows, and the remaining hairs were sticking up in the opposite direction they should’ve. He was slumped over and looked like he was in need of a good night’s sleep and maybe a Xanax, even though it was still afternoon.

“I’m Agent Ethan Marston, and this is my partner, Robbie Holm, from MBLIS,” I said, nodding to the man behind the desk. “We’re here to help out with the missing child case.”

“Of course you are,” he sighed, waving a hand to indicate that we should sit in the two wooden seats across from him. “I’m Chief Raskin. Welcome, we’re glad to have you.”

He sounded just as exhausted as he looked.

“We’re glad to be here,” I said, taking my seat, closely followed by Holm. “Why don’t you update us on what you have so far?”

“I’m afraid not much since the FBI called you in,” he said, and I noticed the hint of a southern twang in his raspy voice. “We’ve been looking and looking, but he’s not anywhere in this town, or if he is, he’s hiding real good.”

“We were told there were two perps seen in the initial video, but only one showed back up at the mall later, and only one is mentioned in media reports,” Holm said, and Raskin nodded.

“Yeah, the FBI took the lead on that one,” he said. “Thought it would be best not to tip ‘em off that we know about the other perp since he was all bundled up and only a couple of witnesses got a decent look at him. We’ve kept those witnesses quiet for now, but it’s only a matter of time until the reporters get to ‘em, I’d say.”

I thought that Raskin looked a bit more world-weary than I would’ve expected for a department of this size.

“You always worked here?” I asked him.

“Oh, no, sir,” he said, shaking his head. “Not at all. I used to be a detective up in Durham. I got one or two cases like this in my tenure, though never this high profile. Thought this job would be less stressful, but… well, the world has a way of laughing at you,