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

She approached the crowd and began to sift through it quickly in her mind. Her training and long career enabled her to do this quickly and efficiently while not alerting anyone to the fact that they were being scrutinized.

Her short stature, gender, and unimposing persona enabled her to do this effectively. Though she had a sharp personality and a gruff demeanor, people had a tendency to underestimate her until they got to know her. To this crowd, she was only one random, almost invisible person in a sea of police officers, security guards, and forensics techs.

She wasn’t able to see everyone in the crowd, given its size, but she was able to sift through the first several rows. No one fit the description of the man in the video.

The security footage also showed that there was another man involved in the abduction of the boy. But he was just a shadowed figure in the distance, the only part of him really visible a gloved hand carrying a gun. A break between his glove and his sleeve showed that he was white. Beyond this, all they knew was that he was of medium height and very muscular.

This was unusual, Nina knew from her career and from what the psychologist had told her on the way there. Normally, these stranger kidnappings were lone-wolf operations. A lone perpetrator, almost always male, would take a child for the purpose of abuse. But two men? Two men indicated that this was some kind of wider operation.

That wasn’t necessarily true, Nina knew. It was possible that two lone wolves could pair up to help each other out and make the abduction easier. But it was her fear and her suspicion. The psychologist and her supervisors at the FBI shared her concerns. However, she would expect that if this were part of a wider operation, it would’ve been more sophisticated. These men were caught on camera, and the one whose face could be seen appeared almost panicked at the moment, as if this wasn’t planned. That was more indicative of a lone-wolf situation.

But even if there were two lone wolves, that wouldn’t make sense. If they were working together, they had to have planned ahead. The other man was disguised and had a weapon. But the second man wasn’t disguised at all.

There were so many contradictions involved that Nina’s head was spinning as she tried to sort through it all. It had been spinning for hours, and most especially since she’d viewed the security footage at the police station. None of this made sense. None of it added up. This crime didn’t fit any guidebook for how it was supposed to go.

And none of this was good news for that little boy. If the rulebook for working such cases had to be thrown out, how was she supposed to find this kid? Nina worried that even she might be out of her depth on this one as she continued to survey the crowd.

She was so lost in thought that she barely registered a woman yelling at her from just behind the caution tape.

“What?” she asked, shaking her head at the woman, who was leaning forward and hollering something at her.

“Are you a reporter?” the woman, who looked to be middle-aged and was wearing a t-shirt and jeans, asked her, speaking the words slowly and annunciating carefully so that Nina would hear this time.

Nina glanced down at her own attire. A t-shirt and jeans of her own, a uniform that she’d become accustomed to wearing during her months undercover in New Orleans, and had opted to continue wearing when on assignment since it allowed her to blend into the environment. Very few people assumed she was a law enforcement officer when she was dressed like this, let alone an FBI agent. Clearly, it worked, though she doubted she looked like a reporter either. Though since she was behind the caution tape, everyone in the crowd must assume she wasn’t an average citizen.

“No. No, I’m not,” she said, approaching the woman. “I’m here looking into what happened here today. Can you tell me why you’re here?”

“I’m just wondering what happened to that poor little boy,” the woman said, her face falling as if she was disappointed that Nina wasn’t who she thought she was. “I was hoping that someone was here to get the word out.”

Nina glanced out across the still growing crowd.

“I’m pretty sure that’s already been accomplished,” she pointed out. “How did you hear about it?”

“Oh, I’ve been here since this morning,” the woman said, jumping at the opportunity to tell her story. “I was in the shoe store when it happened. I just haven’t been able to bear to leave. I want to help.”

“Shoe store?” Nina repeated, craning her neck to try to see over the crowd. “What shoe store?”

“Oh, over here,” the woman said, motioning for Nina to follow her.

Nina ducked under the caution tape and elbowed through the crowd alongside the woman. This didn’t prove all that difficult since most people were trying to press forward instead of back. They seemed surprised that the two women were turning around and parted for them, jumping at the opportunity to take over the spaces at the front that they left open behind them.

“I’m Agent Nina Gosse,” Nina said, holding out her hand to the woman when they were about halfway through the crowd. “And you are?”

“Matilda Smith,” the woman said, scrunching her face at Nina and gazing at her with some skepticism. “Agent? What kind of agent?”

“FBI,” she said, and the woman continued to stare blankly back at her. “I like to blend in.”

“Right,” she said, looking a little shaken by this. “Come on, this way.”

She motioned again for Nina to follow her off to the side now. The crowd was more spread out now since most of the people were packed toward the front near the food court.

Smith led Nina toward a shoe store, which was boarded up