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

Osborne sighed and pursed her lips as if trying to decide how to respond to this.

“I don’t know,” she said at long last. “You know the details of the case, Agent Marston. It’s an odd one. Usually, it’s someone known to the child, but it’s hard to work this whole thing out. I’m relatively confident that neither parent recognized the unmasked perpetrator, but we all know there were two men who took him.”

“Yes,” I said, thinking this over. “That could explain why one of them had his face covered. He could be someone they know, or who the child knows.”

“Agreed, though if he’s the only one who knew him, and not the parents, it probably would’ve been more of a benefit to be unmasked to lure him in,” Osborne added.

“Could’ve been to avoid detection,” Holm shrugged.

“But the other one didn’t seem so concerned about that,” the woman said, shaking her head slowly. “It is an odd case. None of it quite adds up the way you expect it to.”

“I suppose that’s why we’re here,” I said, giving her a small smile. “In the meantime, I think I’d like to talk to the parents myself if you don’t mind.”

“Of course,” Osborne said, nodding her head gratefully to me.

“Has anyone else spoken to them much?” Holm asked.

“Not in detail,” she admitted, shaking her head as she rose to reopen the door to the interrogation room for us. “They’ve been very busy trying to find the child, and I’m more than competent.”

“I’m certain that you are,” Holm said quickly, looking alarmed that he might have inadvertently called Dr. Osborne’s expertise into question. “I didn’t mean to…”

“Don’t worry, I didn’t take it that way,” she said, giving him a thin smile, which I imagined was the best she could manage on a good day. “I was just reiterating the point.”

Together, we all made our way back to the sitting area, which was silent but for the father’s continued sobs. The mother was also crying now. Chief Raskin looked even more uncomfortable than he had when we left him.

“Don’t worry, Eddie,” Osborne told him, resting a long, thin hand on his shoulder gently. “We can take it from here.”

“Uh, thanks,” Raskin said, seeming surprised to see us, like he hadn’t noticed our return, though he looked more relieved than ever that we had. “I’ll just be in my office if anybody needs me.”

“Thank you,” I told him, and he scurried off as quickly as he could, leaving us alone with the parents.

Osborne settled back into the chair once occupied by the chief, and I sat down in another across from the boy’s mother. Holm crossed over to a bench against the wall, closer to the father’s side of the couch.

“Hello, I’m Ethan, and this is my partner, Robbie,” I said as gently as I could, speaking directly to the mother, who looked right at me with tears streaming down her face. The father still had his head in his hands, though his shoulders shook less now. “What are your names?”

I knew from the police and media reports, of course, but it was better to ease witnesses into difficult conversations like this.

“You’re with that other agency?” the father asked, raising his head weakly. “The one the FBI called?”

“MBLIS, yes,” I confirmed, and the mother nodded knowingly. She must have been familiar with most government agencies, I realized, because of her job.

“I’m Annabelle Watson, and this is my husband, Curt,” the mother said, rubbing her partner’s back. “Our son’s Mikey. Well, Michael, but we call him Mikey. You know that, though, of course.”

She shut her eyes tight as if trying not to visualize what might be happening to her little boy at that moment, and I had to force the thought away myself.

“Why don’t you tell us what happened?” I asked her gently.

“I know you’ve probably told the story a thousand times already today, but if you could just indulge us one more time, we’d appreciate it,” Holm added when the woman hesitated to respond.

The woman reopened her eyes and nodded, and so did her husband.

“We… we went to the mall early this morning, the second it opened,” she explained. “Mikey forgot his toothbrush and his bathing suit, so we needed to get him a new one. He insisted on packing himself, you see. He wanted to be a big boy. He wouldn’t even let me check to see that he had anything. I figured I might as well encourage some independence. We both work, you see.”

She choked up again, and I nodded to her to make sure she knew that I didn’t think it was her fault.

“I understand,” I assured her.

“Well,” she continued, gulping down her tears. “By the time we were done at the department store, he was crying because he was so hungry, and we hadn’t had breakfast yet.”

“Most of the places in the food court were still closed,” Curt added. “But there was a pretzel stand open, and so I went to get him one of those. He wanted the fancy one, covered in cinnamon and sugar and all of that. He likes those.”

The man gave a watery smile at the memory.

“What happened next?” I urged gently, hating myself as I did so.

“Well, the stand only took cash, and I didn’t have enough coins,” Curt said, his voice shaking. “Mikey was looking at some gum-ball machines, and I called Annabelle over to see if she had any quarters or another dollar bill.”

It was the father’s turn to shut his eyes tightly now, not wanting to go on. His wife looked at me apologetically.

“That’s when it happened,” she said, her voice as small as that of a mouse. “When I turned my back, just for a minute, to give Curt some coins. When I turned back around, Mikey wasn’t by the gum-ball machines anymore. He was all the way down the hall by one of the stores, and then he was screaming, and that man was