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

was finished, nodding slowly. “You think it would be wrong to ignore the Coast Guard account lest we end up in the same position as Interpol with your other case. Don’t worry, then. I brought you here for a reason. I won’t be ignoring it. And the Coast Guard’s out scouring the water for them as we speak.”

“Good,” I said, nodding to her, and noticing that she called the Holland case mine and Holm’s, and not her other case, too. “So, I know that I probably shouldn’t ask…”

My voice trailed off as I watched for her reaction. I could tell she knew exactly what I wanted to ask. She was too smart not to, and she gave me a wink for good measure.

“No, you probably shouldn’t, Marston,” she said with a small smile. “And I shouldn’t tell.”

She lingered on that sentence, meeting my eyes. So she did know something, I decided. She had to. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be saying there was anything to keep from us.

“Come on, this is an MBLIS case, isn’t it?” Holm complained, clearly catching on to the same thing I had. “Our agencies are supposed to be working together, aren’t they?”

“They are,” Nina said, nodding again and seeming to mull this over. “But not every agent knows every detail of a case this big. There are lots of different facets to consider.”

“It has to do with Lafitte’s ship, doesn’t it?” I asked, unable to contain myself any longer. “The FBI still has jurisdiction over that, technically. I know because I keep asking Diane about it. Come on. It could really help our investigation to have some answers about it.”

“I know it would,” Nina said, pursing her lips. “Which is why you haven’t heard anything yet, I’m afraid.”

I thought about this for a second.

“You mean you think you might have something, but you don’t know for sure yet, and you don’t want to tell us until you do?” I asked.

I had to admit that this made some measure of sense. Nina and her team—whatever it was they were working on—wouldn’t want to sidetrack us when we should be looking for the Hollands and pursuing our own leads. Still, it was tantalizing to know that there was something going on that we weren’t exactly privy to yet.

“You could say that,” Nina said quietly. “They’ve been keeping us updated on what you’re doing, though. I left this morning before the news from Scotland must’ve come in. I’m sorry, I can imagine how frustrating it is to have someone else working this case when you should be there yourselves.”

“Kind of like finding out that someone else is working your case and not giving you all the details,” Holm said bitterly, and I shot him a look. I was sure that Nina was telling us all that she could. I hated this just as much as he did, but it was what it was, and antagonizing her wasn’t going to help matters any.

“Holm…” I started to say, making to scold him, but Nina held up a hand to stop me.

“It’s okay,” she said, hunching over her plate. “I understand. I’m almost as frustrated as you are, believe it or not, not being able to talk about things yet. But we’ll get there, I promise. I just wish we didn’t have this nightmare of a case to take us all off the rest of our workload.”

“Finding this kid is the top priority,” I said. “Then, we can worry about the rest of it.”

Nina and Holm both nodded in agreement, and I finally turned my attention to my crab legs. Nina and Holm were both close to being done with theirs, but I’d talked so much that I’d almost forgotten mine. Luckily, they were delicious even after the wait, dipped in butter and sprinkled with cracked pepper and creole seasoning.

“You guys got a place to stay yet?” Nina asked us after a long period of silence in which we just enjoyed our meals and the view of the water in the distance, a brief reprieve during a particularly stressful case.

We both shook our heads.

“We were just about to do that when we ran into you,” I explained. “Though I doubt we’ll spend much time there. Probably just catch an hour or two every now and then in the station until we crack this one.”

“Fair enough, but the FBI’s putting me up in an inn not far from here,” she said. “Osborne, too, though I doubt she’ll spend much time there, either. You two might as well stay at the same place, in case anything happens. I double-checked that there’s still space this morning before I called for you, and now that most people are clearing out of town, I’m sure it won’t be a problem.”

“We’d appreciate that,” Holm said, nodding to her.

“We can head back to the station, then get you guys checked in whenever we leave for the night,” Nina suggested.

Left unsaid was the phrase if we leave at all. In a case like this, the clock was always ticking, and come morning, Mikey would’ve been missing for a whole twenty-four hours, without much sign of him since. That was bad, and it was just going to keep getting worse with each hour that ticked by without a new lead.

“Sounds like a plan,” I said, forcing a smile. It was important to keep up morale, as much for my own sake as for everyone else’s.

Our best hope was that the Coast Guard would catch another sign of the boy or the perps tonight, or that the biological father would turn up with some information. Until then, all we could do was keep looking.

11

Nina

It was good to see Marston and Holm again, even if Nina couldn’t be as forthcoming as she would like to about Lafitte’s ship.

In truth, she’d been arguing for weeks with her supervisor about bringing the MBLIS agents into the fold on what they were doing in Virginia. Her pleas fell on deaf ears, however. He just kept