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

“Alright, alright,” Nina said, shushing him. “Let’s just calm down for a minute here. Why don’t we start at the beginning? Mikey’s mother says that you weren’t exactly happy when she got pregnant and didn’t want anything to do with your son. What changed?”

“Th-that’s not true!” Jackson stuttered, his pale face turning beet red in an instant. “I mean, I’ll admit I was scared, and I ran at first… But then she blocked my number, and she moved apartments, and no one would help me get in touch with her!”

“You mean you came back?” I asked, taken aback.

“Well, I’ll admit that it wasn’t right away, and I-I didn’t look as hard as I should’ve,” Jackson said, hanging his head so I could only see the tips of his bright red ears. “And when I didn’t find her, I was kind of relieved. I thought I got a chance to start over, so I transferred programs and moved out to California when I got this job. But the whole time, it was just eating at me, so about a year ago, I tried to get in touch with Annabelle. Found her on the CDC website.”

This struck me as a slightly more plausible story. In this century, if Jackson really wanted to find his son, he would’ve been able to. He just needed some time to come around to really wanting to, and by the time he had, Annabelle had left him behind. It was a tale as old as time, and an unfortunate one, really.

“We’re told you have a fiancée? Did she have anything to do with any of this?” Nina asked. It was a smart question. Sometimes big life events spurred these changes of heart.

“Oh, no, I contacted Annabelle a year ago,” Jackson said, shaking his head and looking in our direction again. “Jeannette and I really only got together about six months ago. We’ve been friends for years, so things moved quickly.”

“Alright, and where is she now?” Nina asked. “We’ve been trying to get in touch with her.”

“Sh-she's in Germany for a research conference,” Jackson stammered, seeming surprised again at this. “Has been for a week and won’t be home until next Saturday. W-what do you want to talk to Jeannette for?”

“Well, we’ve been trying to get in touch with you,” I said. “Pretty much constantly since we found out about you yesterday afternoon. But when the police showed up at your house, you were gone, and no one could find your fiancée, either.”

Jackson’s eyes widened at this, as he no doubt realized how bad this must’ve looked.

“Oh, no, no, no, no, no,” he said, shaking his head wildly and moving his whole body along with it. “No, no, no, no, no, you can’t think that I had anything to do with this, that Jeannette…”

I cut him off, holding up a hand to silence him.

“Don’t worry. If you didn’t have anything to do with this, we’ll figure that out,” I said. “There’s no reason to panic if you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“No reason to panic!” he cried. “My son’s missing, and you’re wasting time trying to track me down instead of finding him!”

I exchanged yet another look with Nina. It was looking less and less like this nervous little man had anything to do with his son’s disappearance, and as good of news as that was for him, he was right that it wasn’t great for Mikey.

“We promise that there are people out looking for your son right now,” Nina reiterated. “They’re doing the best that they can.”

“You’re the best that they can!” he exclaimed, looking wildly between us again. “You’re an FBI agent, and he’s a what-cha-call-it agent, and that other lady said she was with the FBI, too. So what are you all doing here? You need to go find my son.”

“Jackson, we need to rule you out first,” I said sternly but kindly. “And the quicker we can do that, the quicker we can get out doing what you want us to be doing. Do you understand that?”

He looked right at me for a long while, his whole body tense and constricted, hunched over the table.

“Okay,” he said finally, letting some of that tension go as his shoulders slumped. “Okay, then.”

“Alright, so let’s jump ahead to all this custody business,” Nina suggested. “Why wouldn’t Annabelle let you see Mikey?”

“She said he already had a dad, and that I lost my chance,” Jackson said, blinking away what must have been tears. “And I apologized for that, I really did, but I think I deserve a second chance. I’m not trying to replace anybody, but he’s my son, too. And then, after a few months, when she still wouldn’t let me see him, I talked to a lawyer. I didn’t want to do anything so drastic, but I felt like I didn’t have another option.”

I had to admit that I felt for the guy. I could see both sides, so surely they should’ve been able to work out some kind of arrangement that worked for everyone involved.

“Why don’t we jump ahead to yesterday?” I suggested. “If you didn’t know that we were looking for you, how come you’re here? Why did you leave San Diego?”

“Well, I was eating breakfast, and I saw Mikey on the news!” Jackson cried, becoming agitated at the memory. “And then I saw Annabelle and her husband, and I watched long enough to see where they were, and then I hopped on the first flight out.”

That would explain why Jackson’s breakfast was left sitting there half-eaten, his door unlocked. If I saw my kid on some police report on the news, I’d probably forget myself, too.

A sinking feeling was beginning to form in the pit of my stomach. It was looking less and less like Jackson had anything to do with Mikey’s disappearance. And that was bad news for Mikey.

“Do you own a gun, Jackson?” Nina asked.

“Wh-what?” he stammered, taken aback.

“A gun,”