Kingston Kidnappings (What Happens In Vegas Book 3) by Matt Lincoln (great book club books .txt) 📗

space when he got in his own head like this. I wanted to ask him what was wrong, but I knew he’d get over it faster if we all just left him alone for a while.

I continued into my office and set the cup down on my desk before closing all the shutters. I was getting better about being social and opening up with people, but I still preferred privacy while I was working.

First up were the Weavers. According to what Naomi had told me, Daniel Weaver had been the main antagonist in Kamya’s life, so I decided to start with his computer. His search history was completely empty, and his computer’s cache had been cleared.

“That is a rookie mistake, Weaver,” I muttered to myself. “You cleaned up a little too well, and now it’s obvious that you were trying to hide something.” Fortunately for me, recovering that kind of data was extremely easy. A few minutes later, I had managed to recover everything that Daniel had deleted in the past twelve months.

“You didn’t even do a good job,” I scoffed. “Might as well have just left it all out in the open.”

It was lucky for me that he didn’t seem to be particularly tech-savvy. After the insanely skilled hacker who’d tried to track me down during our mission in Japan, I was more than glad to be assigned something so simple.

It didn’t take me long to discover that the Weavers had made two very large payments to an offshore bank account. The first payment was made about six months ago, and the second one about a week after.

“Kamya started living with them six months ago,” I muttered to myself. “Around Christmas time is what Naomi said.”

Next, I looked through his emails. Around the same time the payments had been sent, Daniel had been exchanging emails with someone in thinly veiled code. The messages were about some kind of shipment and an exchange of money, and although they’d made a weak attempt to hide it, it was clear that they were talking about Kamya. At one point, Daniel even referred to the package as a “her,” and I rolled my eyes at how unstealthy he was. I tried to trace the email he’d been communicating with, but I was unable to find anything. It looked as though whoever he’d been speaking with was more cautious than he was.

I continued to look through the computer and found that Daniel had visited the Hope For Children website several times over the past six months. Hope For Children was apparently a non-profit organization founded by a woman named Sandra Baker. The organization was dedicated to stopping child trafficking and included a list of numbers and e-mail addresses that one could contact if they suspected that a child was a victim of human trafficking.

“Why were you so interested in this organization?” I muttered aloud.

“Who are you talking to?” A voice behind me asked, and I jumped in surprise. I gasped as my hand bumped into my coffee cup, which wobbled and spilled hot coffee over my desk. Fortunately, it didn’t fall over completely, and the damage from the coffee was confined to a small spot beside my keyboard.

“Don’t scare me like that,” I reproached as I pulled some tissues from my purse to mop up the spill. “I almost spilled coffee all over my computer.”

“Sorry,” Junior replied, but the smile on his face told me that he wasn’t very sorry at all. “You look funny when you get that concentrated and start talking to yourself. Did you find anything?”

“A little,” I responded. “The Weavers made some pretty big payments to an overseas account about six months ago, which matches the timeline that Kamya gave us. Before you ask, no, I couldn’t trace it, but I did find some email records here that indicate Daniel was in communication with someone about buying Kamya. Ew, I feel gross just saying that.”

“I know,” Junior grimaced. “I just finished interrogating Mr. Bradshaw, and he and his wife both kept trying to downplay everything like it wasn’t that big of a deal that they were keeping children locked in their homes. It’s disgusting.”

“It is,” I sighed sadly. I joined MBLIS because I knew that I could use my skills to make a difference, but it never got any easier learning about all the vile things people were willing to do for a buck. “I couldn’t trace the email either, which tells me that whoever’s sending the children over here knows enough to at least cover their tracks better than Daniel did. I’m hoping I’ll find something else on one of the other suspect’s devices.”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Junior responded bleakly.

“Why not?” I asked.

“The Weavers were the main ones running the show,” Junior explained. “Mr. and Mrs. Bradshaw both insisted that Daniel was the one who always acquired the kids for everyone, so I doubt anyone else will have records of the transactions on their computers.

“Well, shoot,” I grumbled. “I’ll have a look, anyway. We shouldn’t give up until we’ve exhausted every possible avenue.”

“Alright,” Junior sighed. “Well, I’m going to get back to work so I can get notes on Charlie and Naomi’s interrogations. I’ll call you later, okay?” He smiled before leaving my office, and I smiled back. I couldn’t let myself get distracted while I was still at work, though, so I turned back to my desk and plugged Daniel’s phone into my computer.

The phone prompted me for a fingerprint scan before it would open. This would make it a little more difficult to hack than the computers had been, but I wasn’t about to give up so easily. We had the Weaver’s fingerprints on file as part of our investigation, so it was only a matter of taking the image and uploading it to the phone in a way that would trick the program into thinking it was reading Daniel’s fingerprint. A second later, the phone opened, and I smiled in satisfaction. To be honest, using