by Matt Lincoln
There was a half-drunk cup of coffee on Raskin’s desk and a file open to a page in the middle. He was just gone. Everyone was.
“What about Dr. Osborne and the parents?” Marston asked as they surveyed the front room, their guns still held ready at their sides.
“I guess we can check, but I doubt they’re here if everybody else is gone,” Nina whispered with a shrug, and she covered Marston as he began to creep down the long hallway past the interrogation rooms.
The lounge area was predictably empty as well, nothing to indicate that anyone had been there at all except an empty chip bag sitting on the coffee table in front of the couch.
“Where could they be?” Marston asked, shaking his head in wonder as he made sure no one was hiding back by the vending machines off to the side. But there wasn’t a soul there. There wasn’t a soul in the whole station that they could find.
“What about the perp?” Nina asked, suddenly remembering Justin. “Someone from Durham was interrogating him when we left, so he must still be in the interrogation room unless someone grabbed him before they left.”
Marston perked up at this, seemingly having forgotten the gangbanger, as well. But then he narrowed his eyes.
“I don’t remember seeing him when we passed through the hallway,” he murmured. “All the interrogation rooms have one-way windows, remember? We would’ve seen him.”
Nina deflated at this. It was true. If Justin had still been there, handcuffed to that chair, they would’ve noticed them, as high on alert as they had been.
“Let’s check anyway,” she whispered. “It can’t hurt. Hell, let’s check all the rooms, make sure nobody’s hiding in there away from the window.”
And so they both trekked back through the hallway, peeking one by one into the interrogation rooms. They each took turns going in to look while the other stood guard at the door in case anyone came up behind them. But they came up empty-handed time and again, one room after another.
When they reached the room where they had interrogated Justin what felt like a lifetime ago, Marston pushed the door open and pressed his back against the wall, inching inside while Nina waited in the doorway facing the hallway, her gun held at the ready in case anyone tried to sneak up on them.
“What do you see?” she hissed back at the MBLIS agent when he didn’t say anything.
“Nothing,” he breathed. “Well, nothing except a pair of broken handcuffs. He’s gone.”
Nina froze as that chill in her spine spread throughout her whole body.
“Broken handcuffs?” she repeated, all the worst possibilities running through her head. “What do you mean broken?”
“Come and see for yourself,” he suggested. “I’ll cover you.”
And just like that, they switched places, Marston taking her place at the door as she turned to take in what lay behind her.
There they were. Justin’s handcuffs, dangling from the table where he’d been chained for most of the day. Well, not quite. Half of them were dangling from the table. The other half lay on the ground, broken off in the middle, and halfway through the circle where it had lain on his wrist. There was some blood there like he’d been scratched in the process of removing them.
“But… how…” Nina stammered, trying to work through how he could’ve done that on his own.
“He must’ve had help,” Marston called darkly from the doorway, reading her mind. “Someone was here. Someone came to get him.”
“Well, I don’t see any bodies,” Nina said, turning to stand next to him then. “So no one must’ve been hurt when it happened. Whoever it was must’ve scared them enough to clear out of here, though.”
She pulled out her phone and stared at it, willing it to explain to her how this happened and why, especially why no one had called to warn them about what had happened, to tell them that the others were alright or that the station had been attacked.
Together, she and Marston surveyed the entire station again, just to be sure that they were alone inside. It didn’t take long, given how small it was. Then they locked the doors. There were security tapes, but they didn’t have the codes to access them and see what had happened.
Once she was sure that they were alone and speaking in a normal voice wouldn’t alert anyone unsavory to their presence, Nina pulled her phone out yet again and called for Osborne. Almost predictably, she heard it ringing from the lounge area down the hall and winced.
“Well, I guess that explains that one, at least,” Marston muttered, shaking his head. “She must’ve left it here when she left. I don’t suppose she knows your number by heart?”
“I doubt it,” Nina said, pursing her lips. “Nobody memorizes those things anymore.”
“Too bad,” Marston sighed, his eyes misty as if they were longing for a simpler time.
As if on cue, Nina’s phone rang. She glanced at it. She didn’t recognize the number, but it was from a local area code.
“Hello?” she answered.
“Agent Gosse, it’s Osborne,” the psychologist’s voice called from the other line, and Nina breathed a sigh of relief. “I got your number from the director’s office. I left my phone at the station. There’s been a problem…”
“I know,” Nina said, cutting her off. “We’re in the station now, and the perp, Justin, is gone. What happened? Where is everyone?”
“You’re in the station?” Osborne asked, her voice suddenly panicked. “Are you alone? Are you alright?”
“Yes, we’re fine,” Nina said, suddenly growing nervous again as she scanned the front room where they were standing. “What do you mean?”
“Well, there were just so many of them!” Osborne cried. “Are any of them still there?”
“Who?” Nina asked quickly, glancing over at Marston as he stepped toward her, his brow furrowed in concern. “What do you mean there were so many of them?”
“The goons, the ones who broke out the other one,” Osborne explained. “They acted like they were going to kill him for talking to you, but then they just hauled him away. There weren’t many people here when it happened. It’s like they chose the moment the detectives and officers were going to change shifts. Raskin was practically on his way out. There were too many of them. There was nothing we could do.”
“I… I understand,” Nina said, glancing back over at Marston, telling him with her eyes that something was wrong. “How long ago was this? Was anyone hurt? Where are you all now?”
“About forty-five minutes ago. I’m sorry I couldn’t reach you ‘till now, there was a lot to take care of, and I thought you were going out on the water. We all went to the hotel where we’re staying,” Osborne explained quickly. “Checked all the parents in. They needed a good night’s sleep, anyway. We’re trying to run things from here for now, and a SWAT team is coming in soon to take back the station from the city, but if you’re already there, and everything’s clear…”
“The station’s clear,” Nina said with certitude. “We surveyed it twice, some parts three or four times. You should send some cars over, and we’ll check and make sure everything’s clear outside, too.”
“Alright, I’ll do that,” Osborne said, and Nina could hear her barking orders to someone near her. “They’ll be there in a few minutes. Stay safe.”
And with that, Osborne was gone. Nina turned to Marston and told him everything she’d learned. When she finished, he cast a weary hand over his face.
“Well, that is something, isn’t it?” he asked, shaking his head. “They must’ve really not wanted him to testify, to take a risk like that. Someone had to have watched them, to know when they were switching shifts.”
Another chill ran up and down Nina’s spine at this. She didn’t like that. She didn’t like that at all.
“Well, we should go check outside,” she said, wanting to do something instead of just standing there. “We don’t want anyone to jump the officers when they get here.”
25
Ethan
Tog
ether, Nina and I headed outside to scope out the outside of the station. I doubted anyone was out there. If they were, wouldn’t they have attacked us when we first arrived? Even so, someone could be hiding from us instead of looking to kill us, so we checked anyway.
The station was a small boxy building, standing alone in front of the parking lot. There was a laundromat across the street, in a building next to a gas station and a pharmacy. It was late, though, and none of those businesses appeared to be open.
Together, the two of us crept around the brick building, looking every which way for any would-be attackers.
We were toward the back of the building when I saw it. The edge of a boot, sticking out around the nearest corner. I elbowed Nina and jerked my chin in that direction.
Her eyes grew wide as she saw it, and she pressed a finger to her lips. I nodded and crept out further in front of her, my gun at the ready. Nina followed close behind me.
We were able to see well enough then to know that the boot was connected to a foot, which was connected to a leg. We didn’t dare look any further than that since he would likely see us then.
“Hands up, or I’ll shoot!” I cried, and the leg shot out around the corner in surprise, as if the man attached to it had nearly jumped out of his skin.
“FBI, come out here with your hands up and weapons on the ground where we can see them, now!” Nina hollered, stepping out next to me with her own weapon held high in front of her.
The leg disappeared behind the wall, then, but I didn’t hear any footsteps. He was still cowering back there.
“If you cooperate, whoever you are, nothing will happen to you,” I assured him, in a bit gentler of a tone now. “If you don’t cooperate, there will be problems.”
A shot rang out, catching me off guard. I instinctively dropped to the ground, pulling Nina along with me. We crouched there, our weapons out in front of us, as we tried to catch our bearings.
It took me a split second to realize that it had been a warning shot. The man had shot into the air to distract us and ran, and after the blaring sound of the gunshot, I was barely able to make out his footsteps as he made his getaway.
Barely.
I jumped to my feet and ran after him as soon as I realized what was happening, and Nina caught on fast, too, only a step behind me as we chased after him.
“Stop!” I cried. “Hold up, or I’ll shoot!”
Two times in one day, I’d been faced with this exact scenario, having to shoot a man in the back as he ran away from me, carrying a deadly weapon he’d already proven he had no qualms about using. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it one bit.
It was dark, and the man was dressed in dark clothing from head to foot, much like the others from earlier that day and Justin in the security footage from the mall. It must have been some kind of uniform for this gang.
I barely made it out as the man turned around to shoot me. But I made it out in the nick of time.
I shot once, then twice, and the man fell to the ground, his gun stretched out in front of him without having made a shot.
Nina and I stopped briefly, but then she rushed forward, and I followed her. I confiscated the gun quickly as she knelt down to speak to him. He was still alive, though his breath was ragged.
“Are you alright?” she asked him. “Are you alright? What’s your name? What were you doing here?”
He didn’t answer as I quickly called for an ambulance and then knelt down on his other side.
“Are there any others?” I asked, a little harsher than I intended. “Are you the last one?”
He gave a short shake of his head, though the motion was clearly difficult for him. Blood spilled out of the right side of his chest and onto the sidewalk, though the pace was slow. I didn’t think I hit any major arteries.
“No, there aren’t any others, or no, you aren’t the last one?” I asked him.
“No others,” he managed to croak as I heard sirens ring out in the distance. Either the ambulance was already close, or the policemen had heard there was a problem and put on their sirens on the way to the station.
“Why did you break him out?” Nina asked.
“J… just lookout,” the man stammered. “Not a part…”
“You were a part of it, and you damn well know it,” I snapped, having no patience for these goons leaping to their own defense at this hour in the investigation. “Now stop it with that and just tell us what happened, now!”
The man gulped and nodded, and some more blood spilled out of him and onto the sidewalk.
“Came to get him…” he murmured. “No… testi…”
But he couldn’t get the word out, no matter how hard he tried.
“Your bosses didn’t want him to testify, okay,” I said, nodding along. “We get that. Anything else? Does he know where Mikey is, and he didn’t tell us? Where’s the boy? Come on.”
I motioned for him to continue, but the man’s eyes just grew wide as he tried to shake his head again.
“We… nothing to do…” he tried to say, but then he just gave up and kept shaking his head.
“I don’t think he knows anything,” Nina said, shaking her head and looking up from the man. “I really don’t. The gang probably figured out we had this guy when the Durham police got involved, and they came down to bust their guy out and stop him from testifying.”
“We can only hope they didn’t kill him,” I muttered. “He was worried that might happen.”
“I need to call my supervisor,” Nina said, standing up, wiping some blood off her arms on her jeans, and pulling out her phone. “He’s going to need to hear about this. The Durham police will need our help to track this guy down.”
“What about Mikey?” I asked, my blood suddenly running cold. Holm was stuck in the hospital already, and now if Nina left me to go look for Justin, what did that mean for the missing boy? Had everybody given up on him already?
“Don’t worry,” Nina said quickly, seeing my expression and reaching out to place a steadying hand on my arm. “I’m still all yours tonight. We need to go back and help the Coast Guard look through those caves. But after that…”
Her voice trailed off, but she didn’t have to finish. I just nodded.
“I understand,” I told her. “You have those other kids to think about. And the kids who might be taken next if you don’t stop these guys. They’re just as important.”
I hated how fast Mikey’s clock was running out. There just wasn’t enough manpower to keep up this investigation for much longer without sacrificing other dimensions of the case. This whole thing was suddenly way bigger than just one little boy who was taken from his family.
Finding Justin was so important because, without him, the whole case against this gang fell apart. He had all the details about where and when all this stuff was happening and who was involved. Sure, he’d told the Durham police some of that already. But without his testimony in court, would any of it matter in the end? Without that, how many kids other than Mikey would be hurt?
But I was still going to find that one little boy. I was still in his corner, and he was still my priority. And for tonight, at least, the same was true of Nina.
The sirens were growing closer now, and shortly, three police cars full of officers and detectives, and one ambulance arrived in the parking lot. Nina went around to greet them while I stayed with the perp.
I glanced down at him. He was unconscious now. I almost felt sorry for him—almost. The other guys had all abandoned him to take Justin wherever they were going and left him behind to update them on what was going on here. They probably wanted him to scope out the place for a while and tell them what we were doing, and who was there, and when. It hadn’t gone well for him.
Soon, two paramedics came to retrieve the man, and I went out to rejoin Nina and the detectives. When I got there, she was just finishing up explaining to them everything that had happened, including our plan to go out on the water that night and look for Mikey with the C
oast Guard.
“Marston, this is Detective Lance with the Durham police,” Nina explained, introducing the man she was speaking with. “This is Agent Ethan Marston with MBLIS, the man I was telling you about.”
There were several other uniformed officers behind the man. I recognized some of them from the delegation of Durham police that had arrived that afternoon to speak with Justin about the gang.
“We hear you’re going back out to look for the missing boy,” Lance said, and I could tell that he didn’t seem exactly happy about this. “You understand it’s been nearly two days since he was taken.”
“Yes, but remember what I told you,” Nina said, jumping in quickly before I had a chance to respond. “The wrappers were found in that cave from the stolen boat.”
“Those could be from anyone,” the stern-looking man said, cocking an eyebrow at her. “And our star witness was just abducted from under our noses. Surely our manpower is better spent…”
“Finding a gangbanger instead of a little boy?” I challenged, taking a step closer to him.
“That not what I…” he started to say, his voice trailing off as he tried to find the right words.
“Then what do you mean?” I asked, though he predictably offered no response. “Look, I get that it’s important for you to find Justin and to try this case in court. Those other kids are depending on you to find them, too. But this one depends on me, and I’m not giving up on him. Not yet. We can reevaluate if we still haven’t found him tomorrow.”
I knew that I really didn’t want to reevaluate if it came to it. But what other choice did we have? The Coast Guard was going to start looking for a body tomorrow, anyway.
I did know one thing. Holm and I were going to be here for a while if we didn’t find Mikey soon. The problem was that we were the only ones solely devoted to finding him. Everyone else had other priorities when it came to this case, even Nina now.
“I understand,” Lance said, though he clearly still wasn’t happy about it.