AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Getting out of the car, she wished she had her gear.
“Did anyone bring a notebook?”
They glanced at her like she was crazy.
“No,” Jordan said. “We’ll tape the conversation.”
“Good,” she said. “As soon as we know for certain this is a missing child, I’ll get it put into the database of missing children.”
After climbing out of the truck, they strode to the house. They didn’t look like lawmen dressed in their wedding finery.
The mother stood at the door. “Please come in. My husband and brothers are still out searching, trying to find her.”
The woman’s eyes were red and swollen. She’d been crying. “She’s only seven.”
They walked into the house. About five people, all women, stood in the kitchen whispering amongst themselves.
“We just came from my brother’s wedding,” she said to the woman. “I’m Marshal Camila Garcia.”
“Jordan Nash, sheriff,” he said shaking her hand.
“Ely Austin, deputy,” he said shaking her hand.
It was a small home filled with family pictures. A typical American family.
The woman’s eyes filled with tears. “Thank you for coming. I know it’s late, but we’ve been searching for her. The other children saw her taken. We’re immigrants and we feared calling you.”
Camila knew they had lost a lot of time by not calling right away. But she wasn’t about to call immigration to turn them in.
“Tell us what happened,” Jordan said.
The woman motioned for them to sit, and the guys sat on the couch while Camila took the recliner wanting to separate herself from the men. She would probably return to interview the mother later, alone. The family had to take her seriously.
“Marta was playing with the neighbor kids and her older brother was with her. They were on the playground in the park. My kids love to hang out there. But no more.”
Her eyes filled with tears and Camila noticed her growing more and more upset. “A black car. A sedan,” she said wiping her eyes, “they stopped right next to the swings. My older son was standing by the fort where his little brother was coming down the slide. Suddenly he heard Marta screaming and he said he glanced over and a man had her and was running to the car with her in his arms.”
The woman began to sob. “Georgio gave chase, but they were speeding down the road. He got part of the plate WHS, but he can’t remember the rest of the numbers. My husband and his brothers are driving around town trying to find her. We’re so scared.”
The woman broke down in uncontrollable sobs and one of her friends came to her side, patting her back.
“We’re going to find her,” the woman promised and it was all Camila could do to keep from spouting statistics about the chances of finding the little girl. By now, the kidnappers would have ditched the black sedan. It would have been carefully cleaned to make certain that no fingerprints remained on the inside. It was most likely a stolen car.
The child was probably drugged so as not to give them any trouble while they whisked her out of the country.
“Do you have a recent picture of your daughter?” Camila asked. She wanted to get this on the missing persons list right away.
“Yes,” the woman said and she went to the wall and pulled down a photo of a beautiful little girl. Someone who would fetch a lot of money on the black market. Sometimes Camila hated her job, and at other times, it gave her such satisfaction, especially when they found the bad guys.
Right now she felt neither of those feelings. Just a sadness that overwhelmed her. Another child taken.
She glanced at the two men. She’d been fucking the enemy. Fucking the very people she was supposed to be investigating. They were her primary suspects and yet she’d spent some of the best time with them tonight.
The woman handed her the photo. “Will you please bring it back to me?”
“I’ll get a copy made and return it to you. What time did this happen?” she asked needing to know what kind of head start the assholes had.
“It was about four thirty,” she said.
