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

“Did Mr. Anderson say anything?” I asked.

“No,” the woman shook her head. “Seemed pretty rude, actually. He just put their daughter in the backseat and told Sue they needed to get going.”

“Their daughter?” I asked, unable to keep the surprise out of my voice.

“Yes,” the woman smiled. “Tiny little thing. Cute as a button. They adopted her from some third-world country a few months ago. They’ve always been such sweet people. That’s why I was so surprised to see them acting like that.”

“You saw this girl?” I asked.

“Yes,” the woman answered a little apprehensively. “Short, curly black hair. Chubby little cheeks. Why? Did something happen to her?” Her voice rose as she began to panic.

“I hope not,” I answered honestly. “Can you please tell me what their car looks like?”

“Oh, sure,” the woman answered nervously. “It’s a blue minivan. It’s got a bunch of bumper stickers on the back. Oh, I’m sorry, I can’t remember anything else right now. Are you sure everything’s okay? Has something happened to them?”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you anymore,” I apologized as I reached into my pocket to grab my phone. I turned away from the woman and stalked back toward the house as I dialed Fiona’s number. I could hear the woman sputtering behind me in shock, and I felt a little bad about turning my back on her so rudely, but time was of the essence now. Spending even a few seconds trying to be polite would mean a child’s life would be in danger for that much longer.

“Hello?” She answered almost immediately.

“Hi, Fiona,” I replied in a rush.

“Miranda already called me,” she assured me. “I’m looking up the homeowner’s information now.”

“Their names are Sue and Greg Anderson,” I interrupted. “At least, that’s what the neighbors know them as. They drive a blue minivan. A witness saw them leave with Lakshmi.”

“Okay,” Fiona replied. I could hear her furiously tapping away at her keyboard. “I’ll have the Amber Alert sent out ASAP.”

“Okay,” I nodded as I ended the call. I ran back into the house and looked around for Miranda. I finally found her on the upper level.

“Hey,” she greeted me as I entered the bedroom she was standing in. It was decorated just as she’d said, in shades of soft pink and purple, with toys and stuffed animals covering every inch of the room. “I was just looking around to see if I could find anything that might help us.”

“I just finished speaking with one of the neighbors,” I frowned. “She told me that she saw the homeowners leave with Lakshmi earlier. She also said that apparently, they introduced Lakshmi to everyone as their adopted daughter a few months ago.”

“Yeah, I assumed something like that was the case.” Miranda sighed. Her voice was calm, but there was a discernible edge to it. “I mean, just look at this room. It’s got everything a kid could want.”

“It sounds like the Andersons had similar intentions to Atkins,” I concluded. “When they saw the ad, they must have genuinely wanted to help her.”

“It looks that way,” Miranda replied skeptically. “But that still begs the question of what they were doing on that website in the first place. Their intentions can’t have been entirely pure if they were on the black market to begin with.”

She had a point, and I wasn’t sure what to say in response to that. There was also the fact that they had run after finding Lakshmi on the phone with someone. If they really didn’t have anything to hide, why did they flee?

“Agents,” one of the police officers called as she rushed up the stairs. “We have a lead on the location of the vehicle. A woman at a gas station about twenty miles from here called to report that she’d seen a couple with a child matching the description of the suspects. Officers are on their way there now.”

“Let’s go then,” Miranda urged as she rushed past me toward the stairs.

I followed her without hesitation. Even though it didn’t appear as though the Andersons meant any harm to Lakshmi, we couldn’t afford to take any risks.

Miranda beat me to the driver’s seat, and though I was a little apprehensive about having her drive while she was in such an agitated state, I didn’t have time to argue. She floored it as soon as I was inside the car, and once again, we had the benefit of police sirens to help us get there faster.

A drive that should have taken twenty minutes took ten at the speed we were traveling, and I could see several police cars in the parking lot as we pulled up to the gas station. As I got out of the car, I could hear shouts and what sounded like a woman screeching coming from inside the gas station.

“Agent Chapman with MBLIS,” I flashed my ID to one of the police officers standing outside the gas station. “What’s going on?”

“The lady who called the tip in grabbed the kid,” the officer explained.

“What?!” Miranda exclaimed as she tried to peer past him into the gas station.

“The suspects were about to leave,” he continued. “She grabbed the kid and holed herself up in the bathroom with her. The lady’s in there pounding on the door, demanding the little girl back. We were about to move in when the man pulled a gun. We have a negotiator in there now trying to talk them down.”

“Let me talk to them,” I pleaded.

“I don’t think-” The officer began.

“She’s panicking,” I interrupted. “The Andersons see Lakshmi as their own daughter. In their eyes, a stranger just snatched their kid away, and now they have a ton of guns trained on them. They need to know that someone is on their side. If we don’t move now, Mr. Anderson might have a breakdown and start shooting.”

The officer stared at me with a torn look on his face.

“I need to clear it with my supervisor first,” he muttered, moving away from the entrance