Stolen Child (Coastal Fury Book 13) - Matt Lincoln (ebook reader library .txt) 📗

“Both a lone-wolf and an organized operation?” Diane finished for me. “Yeah, exactly. Even more puzzling is that the first guy showed back up at the mall while an FBI agent was looking around. There was a shootout, a lot of commotion in a crowded area, and he got away again. No sign of the kid, though. Then, about an hour later, there was the sighting on the water.”

“Is the agent alright?” Holm asked, and Diane nodded again.

“Yes, you’ll meet him—or her, I actually don’t know, I guess—when you get there,” she said. “And you’ll be glad to hear you’re done with commercial flights. That’s all been cleared up after your recent successes.”

“Well, there’s some good news, at least,” I muttered, thinking about how Holm and I had endured a screaming child for hours on our flight to New Orleans.

“Why did the FBI request us, though?” Holm asked, more curious than complaining now. “Why can’t Birn and Muñoz just go?”

Diane shrugged.

“I don’t know,” she said. “The guy just told me that they know about you two now, and they like your work. Your reputations precede you, I suppose.”

“Well, that’s no surprise,” Holm grinned, leaning back in his chair with his hands interlocked behind his head now, a look of gloating etched across his face.

“What, now you’re happy about it?” I asked, arching an eyebrow at him.

“Hey, who am I to deny the people what they want?” he asked with a shrug.

“The people?” I repeated, blinking at him. “What people? One guy at the FBI who has Diane’s number?”

“Come on, let me enjoy the moment at least, Marston, sheesh,” he said, waving a hand at me as if to shut me up.

I simply ignored him and turned my attention back to Diane.

“When do we leave?” I asked her.

“As soon as you’re ready,” she said. “You know how these cases are. You’re on a ticking clock.”

7

Ethan

When we exited Diane’s office, leaving her behind, no one was working, and everyone was staring at us expectantly.

I exchanged a look with Holm. Diane probably didn’t want to tell us about this mission in front of everyone because it would prompt all kinds of complaining that we’d be gone during the Holland case, as well as complaining from Birn and Muñoz that they hadn’t been sent instead, considering how bored they were.

“Well?” Muñoz asked, bugging her eyes out at us. “What was that all about?”

Holm didn’t say anything, so I figured this just had to be on me.

“We caught a case,” I said shortly, swiftly walking over to my desk and beginning to gather up my things amongst all the piles of files and other documents about the Hollands and their associates.

“What case?” Birn asked. His tone was a weird combination of whining and disbelieving, like he was suspicious of what we were saying.

“I guess it’s all over the news,” I said without turning to face him. “Missing kid.”

“The one in North Carolina?” Agent Forrester asked, incredulous. “That’s an FBI case. My buddies back in Virginia have been talking about it in the Slack all day.”

“Huh?” I asked, shaking my head uncomprehendingly at him.

“It’s a group chat thing,” Muñoz smirked. “We don’t use it.”

“Surprise, surprise,” Smith muttered sardonically.

“Okay, whatever, well, it is an FBI case, but they asked us to come help,” I said, as Holm began to pack up his own things to get ready to go.

“Do you know who the agent is on the case?” Holm asked, turning to face the other agents. “They requested us personally, for some reason.”

“No idea,” Forrester said with a shrug. “We just know it’s a big deal. Hey, how come it’s your case now? You’re not going to steal this one out from under us, too, are you?”

I blinked at him, registering what he was saying. I realized that until the whole mess in the Florida Keys, technically, the Holland case had been under the FBI’s purview because of everything Nina Gosse had gone through in New Orleans. They just didn’t know that the Hollands had anything to do with it yet.

It was weird, thinking that the FBI thought of us as the ones sweeping in on their territory here. No wonder they’d been sour since they arrived. Not only were we stealing a case from them, but they were being forced to work on it for us, on our turf, no less.

I felt a bit better about the whole thing with this realization. At least we weren’t the only ones who saw ourselves as being antagonized here.

“It is an FBI case. We’re just going to help them out,” I explained. I almost added “like with New Orleans,” but figured that would just hit on another sore spot with the FBI agents.

“I guess the Coast Guard spotted the kid and one of the perps heading into international waters,” Holm added. “So they called us in.”

“You?” Birn asked, an almost hurt look on his face, and I silently cursed Diane for making us break the news to them all by ourselves. “Why you? Shouldn’t you be working this case?”

“We wish,” Holm muttered bitterly, and I rolled my eyes. Of course, the people who wanted to go on this mission were staying behind, and the ones who wanted to stay behind were going. I would expect nothing less, given how things were going for us lately.

“I don’t know why, but we don’t really get a say in it, do we?” I said, in a tone that I hoped had some finality in it. “Besides, that’s not what matters. Who’s going, which agency’s case it is. A little kid is missing, having God knows what done to him, and somebody needs to find him. Who cares who?”

Everyone was quiet after this until Muñoz gave me a deferential nod.

“Of course, Marston’s right,” she said. “It doesn’t really matter. We’re all itching to get somewhere with this case or another one, but we shouldn’t lose sight of our priorities. Go ahead, get that kid back to his parents. We’ll