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

their custody, I rushed to the back to check on Fiona. She hadn’t said anything since she’d gone back there.

I found her in an office tucked in the very rear of the building. There was a large, colorful alphabet carpet on the floor, and toys and books were scattered all over the ground. Fiona was sitting cross-legged on the floor and speaking softly to three children.

“Fi, are you okay?” I asked as I stepped into the room. “You disappeared on me and then didn’t say anything.”

“Oh, shoot,” Fiona grimaced. “I forgot to call it after I cleared all the rooms. Sorry, I’m not used to being in the field.”

“Yeah, I can tell,” I chuckled.

“Anyway,” she stood and dropped her voice to a whisper, “the kids seemed really scared and confused when I barged in here with my gun out. I thought it might be a good idea to stay and keep them company until backup arrived.”

“That was probably a good call,” I replied as I looked down at the kids. They seemed pretty small. The oldest of the three couldn’t have been more than eight years old or so.

“They asked about her,” Fiona muttered. “They kept calling her ‘mom’ and asking where she was. I told them I was a friend of hers, and that seemed good enough for them. What are we supposed to do now?”

“We’ll let social services handle it,” I replied.

That was definitely an interesting detail. The situation here looked more like what we’d found with the Andersons than with the Weavers. The kids treated Sandra as their mom and seemed happy and calm. Why did some kids end up in relatively loving situations while others ended up living in servitude? I needed to get to the bottom of this.

I marched back out of the room and down the hall toward the entrance. Sandra was still screaming as she was loaded into the back of a police car.

“You don’t understand!” she hollered. “I gave those kids a roof over their heads! That’s more than they would have had in that third world country I plucked them from! Do you have any idea the kinds of things people will do to get into this country? I gave that to them! They owe it to me!”

The officer slammed the car door shut in her face as he shook his head in disgust. I was relieved not to have to listen to her inane rambling anymore. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and called Wallace to let him know that we’d apprehended Sandra but that Amber wasn’t here. My hands shook as I looked for his number. Part of me had hoped we’d find Amber here, safe and sound. Now that hope was gone, and I knew that Charlie was heading straight into the lion’s den.

37

Charlie

I gripped the steering wheel tightly as I swerved around a mossy green pickup truck and just narrowly avoided hitting its rear bumper.

“Charlie, slow down,” Junior implored from the passenger seat.

“Not a chance,” I responded as I overtook another car. “We need to get to Amber.”

“We won’t get to her if we’re splattered across the highway!” he snapped.

I bit back a retort. I didn’t want to admit it, but he was right. I was too reckless. If we were to get in a crash, not only would we be stranded with no way to proceed, but I might accidentally hurt someone else in the process. Still, every second that passed felt like another second too long.

I forced myself to slow down. Still above the speed limit, but not so fast that I was threatening to careen into another car every few seconds.

“We’re going to have to go off-road,” Junior said as he checked the address on his phone. “The mine’s literally in the middle of the desert, about a mile up and to the east.”

“Alright,” I replied. I’d wished now that we’d taken one of the larger company vehicles. None of MBLIS’s cars were really equipped to drive through rocky desert terrain, but I had a feeling one of the vans would have fared better than this small sedan. It was too late to worry about that now, though.

I began to slow the car down in preparation for turning off of the road, and once we hit the designated mile marker, I turned the steering wheel sharply. The transition was rough and sudden, and the car rattled violently. Once the car settled out, however, I accelerated again. Now that there were no other cars on the road, I didn’t really have to worry about speed.

We drove straight for about ten minutes. I could hear metallic dings and high-pitched scratches as the car drove over rocks and barrelled through dry weeds. I knew the car was going to be in rough shape by the time we were done with it, but as long as it held out until we got to the mine, I didn’t really care.

“There it is,” Junior pointed as the mine came into view. It was little more than a small hole carved into the edge of a rocky hill, and if we hadn’t been looking out for it, we might have missed it altogether. I slammed on the brakes and brought the car to a sudden halt at the entrance of the mine.

“Should we wait for the police backup?” Junior asked uncertainly as we approached the entrance of the mine. I could understand his apprehension. The inside was pitch black, and if there were multiple enemies inside, we’d be unable to see them until they were right on top of us.

“No,” I replied. “I can’t wait that long.”

“I figured you’d say that,” Junior sighed as he reached into the bag slung over his shoulder. He pulled out a small flashlight and pointed it toward the mine. Even the flashlight barely managed to illuminate a few feet ahead. I hadn’t come prepared with anything like that, so I used the light on my phone.

We made our way into the