The Lost Girl (A Mickey Keller Thriller Book 1)

by Alan Jacobson

Melissa had kept her busy since they left, except for a nap in the car while they drove. It gave Amy some time to think, but it only reinforced her sense that she had a mental block that prevented her from properly evaluating the situation. She was not thinking clearly—an ongoing problem during her years of depression. This was different, though. Despite the mental fog, she felt…alive. Energized. As if her life had been on pause and she finally found, and pressed, the PLAY button.

  She had purpose again.

  But what was that purpose? That was where her mind refused to go.

  Melissa had asked about Giselle a couple of times, but not her parents. Despite the abuse, Amy figured that a young girl would want to go home. Or at least ask about it. She would yearn for familiar surroundings rather than living on the road, without structure, filled with uncertainty.

  Melissa clearly felt comfortable around Amy. Safe. Amy was keeping her entertained, doing fun things, and making it a memorable time.

  Was she making it memorable for Melissa or for herself?

  They gathered their picnic trash and headed back to the car. Amy used the last ten dollars she had to put a few gallons of gas in the tank, then drove back to the motel.

  Upon arriving, she reserved the next two nights with her credit card. There was risk in doing that, but she asked if the front desk attendant could refrain from charging the room cost until she checked out. The man said he could but that he would need to at least verify her card, which registered a minimal charge of around a dollar that would then be immediately credited back.

  “Any way around that?” Amy asked, her eyes pleading for consideration.

  “Sorry.” He was no older than twenty, she figured, and was quoting his manager’s payment rules. “I’m saving for grad school. Need the job. Gotta follow procedure.”

  Amy nodded resignation. However, she was fairly certain the police were not on the case. She would have seen amber alerts on the freeway signs and it would’ve been all over the news. She saw nothing on TV—or in the local papers.

  “What about an ATM?”

  “Um…” He glanced up at the ceiling. “Couple blocks away, at the gas station. Might be one closer, don’t know.”

  “That’s fine. Walking is good for us.”

  “I’m tired,” Melissa whined.

  “Okay, honey. We’ll drive over.”

  As Amy stood at the ATM plugging in her PIN, she wondered if this was any less risky than using a credit card. Probably not. But she would only have to do it once because she could withdraw a couple hundred dollars. That was nearly all she had left, anyway, since she was due to be paid next week and she was living paycheck to paycheck.

  Amy grabbed at the bills rolling out of the machine’s mouth, thinking about what she might have set in motion. While she did not know who had burst into her apartment the other night, she figured he was a private investigator working for the Ellises. Unless the laws had changed in the past few years, she did not think PIs had the ability to trace her electronic transactions—at least, not legally. Regardless, she had no choice.

  But how long could she keep this up? And, again, to what end?

  She kicked at a rock in the parking lot, frustrated at her inability to reason this through.

  32

  Having exhausted all known avenues for locating Robbins and the girl, Keller began thinking outside the box when his sat phone rang.

  “This is Martinez in cyber. Got a twenty for you. Sending it through now.”

  Keller plugged the address into Google Maps and zoomed to the location, then switched to Street View.

  “ATM,” Martinez said. “Positive ID.”

  “I see it.”

  The line went dead.

  Keller was looking at a town in central California, between three and four hours south of Oakland. He reconnoitered virtually, orienting himself. It was a town he had never visited, so before he started driving he wanted an idea of what he was getting himself into.

  Robbins had withdrawn a hundred and eighty dollars. There had been no other known uses of her debit or credit cards, so he reasoned the cash was needed for gas, food, and a place to sleep. The odd amount suggested it was all the money she had left.

  He switched to satellite view and saw what he was looking for: two motels in close proximity to the ATM. He jotted down the information and a few minutes later he was tossing his tablet onto the passenger seat of his town car. He merged onto the 580 freeway, then dialed a number on his mobile.

  A woman answered the phone and Keller chuckled. “I feel like a dope making a call like this, but my wife and daughter might’ve checked in recently. I mean, she told me where they were staying, but…well…” he laughed again… “guess my wife’s right. I don’t listen so good sometimes. Too busy with the football game, but…sorry, I’m rambling here. I know it’s either your place or the Sands. You got them there?”

  “Name?”

  “Amy Robbins. Daughter’s Melissa. Cutest little thing, five years old with the prettiest blonde—sorry, rambling again.”

  “I don’t have anyone by that name registered.”

  Maybe she didn’t use her real name. I might’ve really freaked her out. He shook his head. Of course I freaked her out. I held a gun to her head.

  “Sorry,” the woman said.

  “You don’t remember seeing them around though? In the office or—”

  “I haven’t, sorry.”

  Keller tried the other number, hoping he had guessed correctly.

  “Sands, this is Ted.”

  Keller went through the same spiel with Ted.

  “Yeah, yeah. I’ve seen them. But I…I don’t think she…you said the name’s Robbins?”

  “Well, she’s a little strange. Sometimes she uses her maiden name when she travels. Security thing. We had an identity theft ten years ago and she’s worried about her credit.” That did not make sense, but the idea was to keep talking until the person stopped listening. Once the guy got enough details he could relate to, he often did not continue the effort to reason it out. Unless it violated company policy, he would accept what you were telling him and comply with your request.

  “That’s okay,” Ted said. “Doesn’t matter what name she used. I’ve seen them.”

  “Good. It’s Amy’s birthday and I want to surprise them. I was supposed to be out of town on business, but the trip got cancelled and I figured, what the hell, it’s only three hours. I should make it a birthday she’ll never forget. Show up unannounced.”

  “They’re in 124. We’ve got some balloons in the back room. You want, I can hang them on her door.”

  “No—no. I don’t want to do anything that tips her off. I’m on my way. It’s her thirty-fifth and I bought her a ring.”

  “That’s gonna be such a surprise.”

  Keller laughed heartily. “Exactly.”

  “No worries, Mr. Robbins. Your secret’s safe with me.” Ted chuckled. “Freshman year, I flew home to Texas and surprised my mom. She had no idea I was coming. It was awesome. Anyway, wish I could see Ms. Robbins’s face. She’s gonna be shocked.”

  Keller grinned as he pressed the accelerator a little harder. “You have no idea, Ted.”

  33

  Ellen and Giselle got in the car and drove along Bellevue Avenue, a tree-lined street that fronted the northern side of the lake.

  Giselle pointed to Ellen’s left. “Melissa and I eat lunch every day over there.”

  A playground with swings and a climbing structure was a few yards farther along a footpath that snaked along the water’s edge.

  “Lovely setting for lunch.”

  “I hope we find her,” Giselle said.

  “We won’t. But I’m hoping the FBI will.”

  “FBI?”

  “I watch a lot of true crime shows on TV. The FBI’s in charge of finding
missing or kidnapped children—if what I’ve seen on television is right. If not, I’m sure they’ll tell us. I looked up their office before we left. It’s nearby. Right off Webster.”

  Giselle shook her head. “I still can’t believe Amy would do this.”

  Ellen looked over at her. “You’re young. When you’ve lived a few more decades, you’ll start to believe anything can happen.”

  They drove another minute in quiet. When they turned onto 21st Street, Giselle said, “I’m worried about Melissa.”

  “I’m obviously not a psychiatrist, but like you said, I don’t think Amy’s going to hurt her. She probably sees her own daughter and in some twisted way believes Melissa’s her dead child. There’s some psychological term for it.”

  “I cannot imagine what Amy went through. If she thinks Melissa is hers, she will take good care of her. She would not hurt her own daughter. Right?”

  “Not purposely.” Ellen was quiet for a moment, then said, “But Amy’s not acting rationally. She could unintentionally put Melissa—and herself—in bad situations.”

  Giselle absorbed that.

  “Even if she’s safe, I’m sure this is very upsetting for a five-year-old. To be separated from her parents.” Ellen found a parking spot on Webster in front of the building that housed the FBI office—tough to do during the work week. “Melissa’s probably having a very hard time.”

  “Maybe.”

  Ellen glanced at her. “What do you mean?”

  “She does not have much of a connection to either of them. Her father, maybe, but she hardly sees him. And Christine, her mother, I think she may be abusing her. I know she’s abusing her.”

  Ellen shoved the gearshift into park. “Tell me.”

  Giselle related what she had described to the fake detective.

  Ellen’s face turned hard. “Did Amy know about this?”

  Giselle bit her lip. “Yes. Some way—somehow, she knew. She said I should tell the police. But I never saw Christine hit her so what would the police do? And then nothing would happen and I would lose my job. Instead I lost Melissa and my job.”

  “We should tell the FBI. I don’t know if they handle child abuse, but they need to know everything.”

  They entered through the Webster Street doors then walked beneath a humongous blue, red, and yellow abstract mural that spanned the width of the lobby and continued a hundred feet to the large security desk. Ellen explained why they were there and the guard told them to go up to the fourth floor.

  The Bureau shared the twenty-story building with City National Bank, the Small Business Development Center, Pandora Media, AT&T, and a number of other tenants.

  Ellen and Giselle exited the elevator and were met with a blue and white FBI logo hanging on the wall, another for the FBI National Academy, and an oversize three-dimensional gold mockup of the Bureau badge. They turned right and saw a large sign that read, “OAKLAND FBI RESIDENT AGENCY.” Walking up to the metal door, they were met with a wall-mounted camera and keypad. Ellen pushed a large red button and a buzzer sounded.

  They entered a modestly sized rectangular room. To the left was a magnetometer, which they walked through after emptying their pockets into a plastic bin and stepped up to the bulletproof glass.

  “We need to report a kidnapped girl,” Ellen said.

  The woman in the office leaned closer to the pass-through at the bottom of the window. “Let me have your photo IDs.”

  They slid their cards through and she wrote their names down on a steno pad. “I’ll have an agent with you in a moment.”

  Seconds later, a man in his mid-thirties walked through a door on the far side sporting a large ’70s-sized afro. “Special Agent Jimmy Hill. Crimes Against Children Squad. You’re here to report a missing child?”

  “Kidnapped,” Ellen said. “She’s not missing.”

  “Follow me.” He walked across the room, directly opposite the security window, and tapped his key card against the lock. He opened the door, revealing a modest eight-foot by seven-foot room with a metal desk, three chairs, a wall-mounted stainless-steel handcuff bar, and a conspicuous surveillance camera on the ceiling.

  They took seats opposite Hill, who sported a broad nose and assorted espresso colored moles on his milk chocolate complexion.

  He pulled over a yellow pad and clicked his pen. “So tell me about this girl. How do you know her?”

  “I’m her au pair. The Ellises—her parents—told me they were going to handle the kidnapping themselves, but then a detective came to ask me questions. I mean an investigator.”

  “Wait—back up a second. The parents did, or did not, report her abduction?”

  “I’m pretty sure they did not. Their business partner said, ‘no police.’ He said they would take care of it. But then a police officer came to talk with me.”

  “That was a hoax,” Ellen said. “I don’t think he was really a cop. He came to talk to me, too.”

  Hill cocked his head. “And you are?”

  “I own Golden State Bakery.”

  “Oh,” Hill said. “My wife loves your walnut cranberry bread.”

  “Yeah, well, it may’ve been made by the woman who kidnapped Melissa.”

  Hill shook his head. “So you’re here because one of your employees is the person you think abducted this girl? Melissa?”

  “Yes. I mean, we know it was her. Giselle saw it happen.”

  Hill swung his gaze back to Giselle. “Start from the beginning.”

  Giselle took a deep breath and recounted the events.

  Hill sat back in his chair, rocked a moment, then nodded. “Okay. First thing I’m gonna do is call Oakland PD and see if I can get to the bottom of this. Maybe you misheard the name. He had an Oakland Police badge?”

  Ellen and Giselle shared a look.

  “He had a badge,” Ellen said. “All I can tell you. Looked real. I don’t know what an Oakland badge looks like.”

  Hill asked them more questions—including a description of the man purporting to be Detective Carr—and took meticulous notes. He set his pen down and glanced at his pad, paging through the information. “I’m gonna give Oakland PD a call. If they’re not involved, they should be. We work with the locals as a rule. If they want us to take the lead, we will. Sometimes they want to work it. Either way, we’ll be involved. Give me a few minutes.”

  “Wait,” Ellen said. “What are we dealing with here? I mean, Amy doesn’t seem to want to harm the girl. She’s just a little psychologically unbalanced. Because of what happened to her family.”

  “At this point we can’t really say what she’s thinking. Or how healthy her thinking is, for that matter. She may be delusional, thinking that Melissa is her daughter. How dangerous is that? I don’t know. And at this point, even a psychologist couldn’t tell us because he hasn’t examined her, or even talked with her. Anything we think may be wrong.”

  Ellen placed a hand over Giselle’s. Giselle wiped tears from the corners of her eyes.

  “What we do know,” Hill said, “is that this appears to be what we call a non-family child abduction. Term is self-explanatory. Some agencies may narrow this down more to an ‘acquaintance kidnapping’ because Robbins obviously knew Melissa—not well, but well enough to identify her as a target. She spent time with Melissa.” He paused. “This situation is a little unusual because her parents aren’t the ones reporting the crimes. We’re going to be bringing them into this. Interviewing them.”

  “They never met Amy,” Giselle said.

  “That we know.” Hill made eye contact with each of them. “There could be more to this than either of you realize. Not saying there is. But what appears to be true on the surface could run much deeper. Things could be going on behind the scenes that you don’t know about. Relationships between each of the people involved have to be looked at.” He turned to Giselle. �
��And that includes you.”

  Giselle recoiled a bit. “I’ve told you everything.”

  Hill nodded thoughtfully. “No offense, but an hour ago I didn’t know you. I still don’t know you. So I can’t take your version of events as the truth until I verify it for myself. Follow?”

  Giselle nodded.

  “Good. That’s a tough concept for some people. They think we’re being hard asses. We’re not. We’re just doing our jobs. Looking at everything objectively so we don’t get led down the wrong path. You could be telling us the truth, but her father might not be—in which case we wouldn’t know, unless we checked it out.”

  “I understand.”

  “One other thing. Until we get things squared away, you’ll need to stay in the area. Accessible to us.”

  “The Ellises are sending me back to Germany tonight. I think they are angry at me for letting this happen. I do not blame them.”

  Hill lifted his brow. “Regardless of how the Ellises feel, I’m going to have to ask you not to leave the country. At least not until we’ve got a handle on what’s really going on.”

  “I do not want to go back to Germany.”

  Hill pushed away from the desk. “Time is of the essence, so sit tight for a bit and I’m gonna call Oakland PD.”

  Hill returned six minutes later. He sat and laid one hand over the other on the table. “You were right. The police have no record. No officer took a report and no investigator was assigned. The man you spoke with was an imposter. Why, we don’t know—yet. But with the descriptions you’ve given us, we’ve put out a BOLO notification for both Melissa and the man who interviewed you.”

  “BOLO?”

  “Stands for Be On the Lookout. Exactly what it sounds like. Most likely scenario is he’s a private investigator hired by the Ellises. There are a number of reasons why they wouldn’t call the police. So let’s not jump to any conclusions. And I’d appreciate if you didn’t talk to the media or post this anywhere on social media. We need to control the release of information to things we want circulated. Certain details we’ll withhold to identify the offender when we catch her.” He glanced at both of them. “Can we count on your cooperation with that?”