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

where they’re supposed to be when they’re supposed to be there, and Jackson’s custody lawyer doesn’t seem to think he’s gotten particularly desperate lately. He was only really suing for full custody to try to get summers and some holidays as a last-ditch effort to get Curt and Annabelle to cooperate with him. I guess he figured going for broke made it more likely he’d get what he actually wanted, which was a relationship with his son.”

“That sounds like kind of a weird strategy,” I remarked.

“It’s not that unusual,” Nina shrugged. “People get angry, and desperate, and rationalize all kinds of things. He might not actually be wrong, either. Curt and Annabelle did get scared when he filed. Anyway, it looks like that end is all but officially dead.”

“What about Curt and Annabelle, then?” Holm asked, almost hopefully. “Do we think they could’ve done this? Dr. Osborne seemed to think it was a possibility since they did get scared, as you said.”

I knew why Holm was hopeful. As wrong as it would be to stage something like this, if Curt and Annabelle were behind it, Mikey was probably unharmed wherever he was.

“It’s possible, but I doubt it,” Nina murmured. “There’s nothing to indicate that it could’ve been them. And they did come clean about everything else in the end.”

“That we know of,” Holm pointed out, and she bowed her head to him deferentially.

“That we know of,” she agreed, but she met my eyes across the breadbasket, and I knew we were thinking similarly. And if Holm were honest with himself, he probably was, too.

Curt and Annabelle didn’t do this. The kid would’ve turned up by now, or there would’ve been some other sign of the whole thing. And like the couple said, this was kind of a crazy thing to do in the middle of a custody battle. It didn’t reflect well on them, even if they weren’t actually to blame for the incident.

“Well, the Coast Guard still hasn’t seen anything new,” I said somberly, turning my spoon around in what remained of my soup, my appetite having suddenly vanished after the miniature whirlwind of Nina getting an update and then having it turn out to be nothing. “We might as well go down by the shore and see if we can get anything the police couldn’t about the boat. They must’ve left from somewhere around here if they really are out on the water, which means they either own a boat or took one from someone else here who does.”

Holm and Nina both nodded. This was just retreading old ground that the police had already covered, but it was still something to do. And if we were going to retread, it might as well be down by the water instead of just interviewing more residents who knew nothing about this except what they’d heard on the news.

“That sounds like as good a plan as any,” Nina said, pursing her lips. Her phone buzzed again on the table, and she picked it up and read it quickly, though she didn’t look as hopeful as she had before, her resolve having been used up already.

“What is it?” Holm asked, just a small glimmer of hope still remaining in his voice. I looked down at his bowl and realized that he’d lost his appetite around the same time I had, half a biscuit now discarded and soaking in the broth of the last of his soup.

“It’s just Dr. Osborne,” she said, her lips set in a thin line now. “They’re going public with the second perp this afternoon, so brace yourselves. There’s going to be a lot more press soon. And a lot more panicked people.”

“More press?” Holm asked. “How could there be more press?”

He was right. As soon as the clock had struck nine earlier that morning, there were reporters practically banging on the doors to the police station. And everywhere we went, people asked us questions about what they’d seen on the news. This thing was getting play all over the country—how else would Jackson have seen it all the way in San Diego?

Holm and I were used to working quietly on the sidelines or in foreign countries where cases didn’t get much coverage. A very public, sensational crime like this was a whole different ballgame for us.

“Just you wait,” Nina sighed. “It’s going to get way worse before it gets any better.”

14

Ethan

We drove down to the docks then and took a look around. There weren’t many people out, though there were plenty of boats floating in the harbor, unoccupied and abandoned.

We didn’t run into any reporters there, thankfully. The part of the case about the sea wasn’t public yet, and likely wouldn’t be for some time. We didn’t want the perps to know we knew about that, and for now, we had a lot of people looking for them officially on the water.

If we didn’t find this kid soon, though, the Coast Guard wouldn’t be able to devote so much manpower to looking after a certain point. We’d have to enlist the public’s help in the search.

Hell, if we didn’t find this kid soon, Holm and I might even be pulled off the case. I doubted Nina and Osborne would be, considering they got here first, but eventually, they, too, would have to pack it up and move on to the next one, only looking into Mikey occasionally in their spare time.

Everyone knew that after a certain point, these cases usually only ended one way if they ended at all. And it wasn’t pretty.

We mostly walked in silence, my colleagues no doubt pondering the same as I was how quickly the clock was ticking. At least the gently lapping water in the bay provided some means of calming my thoughts and that now ever-present pit in my stomach.

Eventually, we came upon a man who was cleaning a little gray motorboat off to the corner of the bay, amidst a cacophony of other boats that measured at least