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

Danny looked taken aback at this, so much so that he took a literal step away from us.

“You can’t… you can’t seriously think that we had anything to do with this?” he asked. His expression was one of bewilderment more than anything else.

“No, nothing like that,” I quickly assured him. “It’s just that we believe one of your boats has been stolen, is that correct?”

“S-stolen?” Danny stammered. “I don’t remember anything ever being stolen. Well, a kid took a candy bar from the cash register once, but his mama made him give it back and apologize to Uncle Dan.”

“Well, we talked to a customer of yours earlier, and he told us that you were missing a boat,” Nina explained. “That you were talking to your uncle about it while he was in the store?”

“Oh, that must’ve been Marty,” Danny said, relief washing over him as he realized what we were talking about. “He was the only one in this morning. All day, really. Everyone cleared out after that whole shooting thing at the mall. Were you all involved in that, too? I heard a bunch of people got shot.”

“Yes, that was his name,” Nina confirmed with a low laugh. “And yes, I was the agent on the scene for that incident, but no one was shot. It seems like there’s been some exaggeration through the grapevine. You’re not the first one to say something like that.”

“Oh, yeah, you’ll find that’s how it works ‘round here sometimes,” Danny said, to his credit also looking relieved to hear that things weren’t as bad as the gossip mill made them out to be at the mall. In my experience, a lot of people loved for there to be more crazy things to talk about, not less, though they’d be hard-pressed to admit as much.

“I imagine so,” I chuckled. “So what can you tell us about this missing boat Marty was talking about?”

“Now, I don’t know about stolen,” Danny said, looking skeptical about all this. “My uncle, he’s always loaning out boats to old friends, or acquaintances, or anyone who wants one, really, and can’t afford it. It’s been our one real argument over the years since I started keeping the books. And he’s getting up there in age. He probably just lent old Lucy out just like the others and forgot. That’s what Marty heard.”

“Well, we’re looking into it anyway,” I said, not wanting to ask any leading questions.

“Now, everyone in town would know that they could just ask Uncle Dan for a boat, and he’d give it to ‘em, as long as they could catch him when I wasn’t around,” Danny continued. “There wouldn’t be any point in stealing one. He even let a couple of those college kids take one once, a couple of summers back. We had a real fight about that one, I’ll tell you…”

“That’s alright, I think you’ve painted the picture,” I said, holding up a hand to stop him. “The thing is, we have it on good authority that one of the men who took Mikey—that’s the boy’s name—took him out on the water in a stolen boat from your shop yesterday and might be en route to one of the foreign coastal islands with him right now.”

Danny’s eyes widened again, and for a moment, I worried that he was going to stumble right over. Nina, for her part, reached out to steady him in case he did, but he waved her off and leaned against a nearby table that donned some t-shirts with the shop’s name and logo on them.

“S-s-seriously?” he stammered, clutching his free hand to his chest. “Lucy? You think they took Lucy?”

“We’re pretty sure,” I confirmed with a nod. “We have a witness willing to testify to that effect.”

Well, referring to Justin as willing seemed a bit of a stretch, but he’d do it anyway when push came to shove.

“Danny, could you maybe take us out to see where Lucy was before she went missing?” I asked him.

“And then it’d be a real help if we could talk to your uncle, too,” Nina added. “Just to make sure that he didn’t lend the boat out to someone after all. We don’t want to go off looking for the wrong boat.”

“I… uh, yeah, he’s just in the back,” Danny murmured, wiping his brow and looking vaguely overwhelmed by all this. “I’ll, uh… I’ll just go grab him if you don’t mind.”

“Of course,” Nina said, nodding to him deferentially, and we exchanged a look. It was good news if the elder Mr. Samuels was actually here, too. Kill two birds with one stone.

“We’d better find this kid tonight,” Nina muttered as Danny disappeared into the back of the shop once more to retrieve his uncle. “Or at least get a lead on what island they could be on.”

I checked my watch almost instinctively at this. Soon it would be nearly two days since Mikey was taken. That was not a good timeframe. Not good at all.

Danny returned quickly with a slightly shorter, hunched, and very much older version of himself. In addition to sharing the same name, it looked like the uncle and nephew bore a striking physical resemblance to each other, as well, with the elder Mr. Samuels bearing a receding hairline so far back that his hair was really just a collection of white wisps atop his head. He had a long, thin face much like his nephew’s, too, with sharp angles to match.

“Hello, Mr. Samuels?” I asked, holding out my hand to the older man as they approached.

“Huh?” he asked, craning his neck to try to hear me better.

“Hello, Mr. Samuels, my name is Agent Ethan Marston, and I’m with the Military Border Liaison Investigative services, MBLIS for short,” I repeated, practically yelling now so that the old man would hear me and explaining the acronym preemptively as I was sure he would think he misheard a word if I just said the acronym alone. “I’m