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

“I was hoping to speak to the children about what they remember of how they got to the United States. They might have seen or heard something important without even realizing it.”

“Okay,” Irie nodded. “Let’s start with Gabrielle. She is the oldest one here. She remembers a lot of what happened to them.” She led me over to the corner of the room where a thin girl with long curly hair was entertaining two of the other children with some kind of story.

“Gabrielle,” Irie called gently. “This is Agent Naomi. She’s one of the people who helped find you. Would it be okay if she talked to you for a moment?”

Gabrielle nodded and said something to the younger children that I didn’t quite catch. There were several dialects of Patois spoken around the Caribbean, and her accent sounded like the kind I’d hear in the southern parts of the country.

“Hello, Gabrielle,” I spoke slowly, hoping that our dialects wouldn’t be too dissimilar for me to understand her. “My name is Naomi. Can you understand me?”

“Yes,” Gabrielle nodded. “I can speak English and French too if you are more comfortable with either of those.”

“Is that right?” I asked in English.

“Yes,” Gabrielle smiled. “I only speak Patois with my grandma and grandpa. At school and with my friends, we mostly speak in English.”

That was a bit peculiar. Kamya and Fatima had both come from impoverished homes where Patois was more commonly spoken than English. In every case we’d seen, the parents had been tricked by the traffickers into believing that their children would be given a better life in the United States. It didn’t fit the trafficker’s MO to abduct a child who was clearly from a wealthier background.

“That’s very impressive, Gabrielle,” I smiled. “Not a lot of people can speak so many languages. Your parents must be very proud of you.”

“I think they are,” she replied sadly. “I haven’t seen them in a long time.”

“We’re going to get you back to them,” I assured her. “But first, do you think you could talk to me about what happened before you got here?”

“Okay,” she nodded.

“Thank you,” I smiled warmly at her. “First, I want to hear about the person or people who took you from your parents. Did they come and talk to you or your family before you went with them?”

“No,” Gabrielle shook her head. “It was a man I’d never seen before. I was playing jump rope with my friend Sara right in front of her house. Her mother was just inside making lunch. Then suddenly, a big, rusty pickup truck stopped right next to us. A man got out and pulled my arm and threw me into the car. I screamed, and then Sara screamed, but the man just shut the door and got behind the wheel. As we were driving away, I saw Sara’s mother come running out of the house. She ran after the car, but we were going too fast, and she couldn’t catch up to us.” Gabrielle paused for a moment to wipe a tear from her eye.

“Would you like to take a break?” I asked. I didn’t want to delay this, but I didn’t want to traumatize this poor child either.

“No,” she replied firmly. “I’m alright. I want to keep talking. So you can go find all the other children, too.”

“Alright,” I smiled softly. “Tell me what happened next.”

“They brought me to this ugly, old building. They said it was a school and that I needed to learn how to clean and cook and sew. I already knew how to do all of those things, but they would get mad if we didn’t obey, so I just did whatever they said. Just two days after that, they told me I was going to ride in an airplane. I didn’t want to, but they said if I didn’t do what they said, they would hurt one of the other children there.”

“Where there a lot of other children?” I asked.

Gabrielle nodded.

“Ten, including me,” she sniffled. “I was the oldest one, and I would hold them or tell them stories whenever they were scared like my papa would do for me.”

“That was very kind of you,” I praised her. I felt sick just hearing about what she had gone through, and I felt compelled to let her know how brave and kind she’d been considering the circumstances.

“I didn’t want them to hurt the little kids, so I did what they said,” she continued. “The night before we were supposed to leave, they gave each of us a cup of hot chocolate. They said it was a graduation present, and that we’d be going to a different school in America the next day. I woke up that night, and I saw them sneaking around the room putting something on the children’s ears.”

“The earrings?” I asked.

“Yes,” Gabrielle nodded. “It looked like it hurt, but they didn’t wake up or make any noise. When the man came over to me, he was angry that I was awake. He made me drink more of the hot chocolate and then told me to go to sleep. When I woke up, I had an earring too.”

“Okay,” I nodded. It was clear that they were drugging the kids in order to make putting the tracking devices on them easier. If they were unconscious, they wouldn’t be able to scream or fight back. This also meant that the American supplier that the Weavers had been in contact with wasn’t the one tracking the children. “What happened after that?”

“The man took two of the other children and me to the airport,” she continued. “He told us to say that he was our father if anyone asked. After the ride on the airplane, he made us drink something sweet. It made me fall asleep, and when I woke up, the other children were gone, and the car was parked in front of a house. The man said that this was the Andersons’ house and that from now