Kingston Kidnappings (What Happens In Vegas Book 3)

by Matt Lincoln

  “And where were you all getting the kids?” I asked. My stomach was in knots listening to her calmly recount how she and her friends had conspired to buy children.

  “I don’t know,” she shrugged. “Danny always handled that part. He’d say that he would contact his supplier, and a new helper would arrive about a week later.”

  “They aren’t helpers, Mrs. Bradshaw,” I growled at her as I finally lost my patience. “They’re slaves. What you and all your friends have done is kidnap children from their homes and keep them against their wills. What would you call that?”

  Mrs. Bradshaw looked at me as if I had slapped her.

  “How dare you,” she scoffed. “Having her do a few household chores doesn’t make her a slave. I gave that child a roof over her head and food to eat. She should be grateful that I plucked her from that squalid little third-world country she was living in before she came here!”

  I was so appalled by the horrible things she was saying that I had to take a moment to regain my composure.

  “Where was her bedroom, Mrs. Bradshaw?” I asked once I’d taken a deep breath.

  “What?” she responded.

  “Her bedroom,” I repeated. “You said that she should feel grateful that you saved her from her home and brought her here instead. So tell me where she slept, Mrs. Bradshaw.”

  She flushed as her mouth opened and closed, unable to form a response.

  “Oh, that’s right,” I chuckled humorlessly. “You had her sleeping on the kitchen floor, didn’t you? In that dinky little cot that you tried to hide in the hallway closet. Did you know we have an agent that speaks Patois fluently? Little Fatima told her all about what you and your husband did.”

  Mrs. Bradshaw was trembling now, but I was too blinded by rage to feel any sympathy for her. “Do you know what else she told us? That you wouldn’t let her on any of the furniture. You treated her like a dog.”

  “That’s not true--” Mrs. Bradshaw started, but I cut her off before she could go any further.

  “You’re a monster,” I snapped as I abruptly stood up, the sound of the chair scraping against the floor punctuating my words. “And I’m going to make sure you rot in prison for what you’ve done.”

  “You said we’d work out a deal if I talked!” Mrs. Bradshaw yelled.

  “I lied,” I gritted out before leaving the room and slamming the door behind me. My face felt hot, and I could hear my own blood as it rushed through my ears.

  “You should sit down,” Junior suggested gently as he stood from his chair. I didn’t feel like arguing, so I obeyed and plopped into the chair he’d just vacated. I leaned forward and closed my eyes as I willed my heartbeat to slow down.

  “It’s not like you to get worked up like this,” Junior remarked. “Not to the point of storming out like that, at least. What’s up?”

  “It’s the fact that it’s kids, I guess,” I responded after taking a minute to think about it. “It’s wrong to hurt anyone, but it’s just so much worse when it’s a kid. I just keep imagining if it was Amber, you know? And she’s in there saying that poor girl should be grateful to be treated like an animal?”

  “Is that why you went back on the deal?” he asked. “You’ve never done that before.” He was right. I was a lot of things, but a liar wasn’t one of them. We were allowed to make deals with suspects if we felt that it might lead us to catch a worse suspect or stop an entire organization, so it wasn’t like I couldn’t have helped her out. I’d made deals before, but this was the first time I’d refused to honor one.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “She wasn’t remorseful about what she’d done at all. It’s like she really thought she was doing that kid a favor.”

  “It’s a group behavior dynamic,” Junior sighed. “The same thing happens in the aftermath of natural disasters with looting. People who would ordinarily never do something like stealing are suddenly thrust into a situation where they feel like it’s okay because everyone else is doing it. In this case, all the neighbors were doing it and actively encouraging others to do so as well.”

  “So they were peer-pressured into doing it?” I asked skeptically.

  “Kind of,” Junior answered. “It’s more than that, though. It’s the same way cults convince people to join. Mrs. Bradshaw said something about it being like a club, right? So they make it seem exclusive and important, and new recruits begin to think that it can’t be so bad if so many other people are buying into it. Emily said that there was a new couple at the dinner party that had just moved into the neighborhood. I think they were probably planning on inviting them into their club that night. The fact that Kamya tried to escape and Emily’s being there probably threw it all off.”

  “That’s probably true,” I growled. “Damn, I wish I hadn’t lost my temper like that in there. I might have been able to get more information.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up over it,” Junior smiled. “You’re only human. It’s impossible to work this kind of job and not get emotional about it once in a while. And I don’t think she knew much else anyway. It seems like the Weavers were the ones doing most of the work, but we’ll have to wait until we finish the interrogations before we come to any conclusions.”

  “You’re right,” I sighed as I stood up. “I think Patel’s interrogation is up next. I’ll go tell her, and then I think I might get some coffee from the break room.”

  I felt worn down as I left the holding area, which really wasn’t ideal considering it was barely nine in the morning. I knew that Junior had a point, and that it was only natural for me to get upset, but at the same time, I knew that I had to reel my emotions in. I wouldn’t be able to work if I kept going off like that. With that in mind, I headed into the break room to rest until it was my turn again.

  10

  Fiona

  I carefully balanced a large cup of coffee in my hands as I left the break room, taking care not to spill any of the hot liquid on myself. I had a long morning of looking through computers, phones, and tablets ahead of me, and I wanted to make sure I was prepared. I passed Charlie on the way back to my office and was about to greet him good morning, but I stopped myself when I saw the look on his face. He didn’t look angry, necessarily, but I’d learned to read his moods, and I knew it was best to just give him some space when he got in his own head like this. I wanted to ask him what was wrong, but I knew he’d get over it faster if we all just left him alone for a while.

  I continued into my office and set the cup down on my desk before closing all the shutters. I was getting better about being social and opening up with people, but I still preferred privacy while I was working.

  First up were the Weavers. According to what Naomi had told me, Daniel Weaver had been the main antagonist in Kamya’s life, so I decided to start with his computer. His search history was completely empty, and his computer’s cache had been cleared.

  “That is a rookie mistake, Weaver,” I muttered to myself. “You cleaned up a little too well, and now it’s obvious that you were trying to hide something.” Fortunately for me, recovering that kind of data was extremely easy. A few minutes later, I had managed to recover everything that Daniel had deleted in the past twelve months.

  “You didn’t even do a good job,” I scoffed. “Might as well have just left it all out in the open.”

  It was lucky for me that he didn’t seem to be particularly tech-savvy. After the insanely skilled hacker who’d tried to track me down during our mission in Japan, I was more than glad to be assigned something so simple.

  It didn’t take me long to discover that the Weavers had made two very large payments to an offshore bank account. The first payment was made about six months ago, and the second one about a week after.

  “Kamya started living with them six months ago,” I muttered to myself. “Around Christmas time is what Naomi said.”

  Next, I looked through his emails. Around the same time the payments had been sent, Daniel had been exchanging emails with someone in thinly
veiled code. The messages were about some kind of shipment and an exchange of money, and although they’d made a weak attempt to hide it, it was clear that they were talking about Kamya. At one point, Daniel even referred to the package as a “her,” and I rolled my eyes at how unstealthy he was. I tried to trace the email he’d been communicating with, but I was unable to find anything. It looked as though whoever he’d been speaking with was more cautious than he was.

  I continued to look through the computer and found that Daniel had visited the Hope For Children website several times over the past six months. Hope For Children was apparently a non-profit organization founded by a woman named Sandra Baker. The organization was dedicated to stopping child trafficking and included a list of numbers and e-mail addresses that one could contact if they suspected that a child was a victim of human trafficking.

  “Why were you so interested in this organization?” I muttered aloud.

  “Who are you talking to?” A voice behind me asked, and I jumped in surprise. I gasped as my hand bumped into my coffee cup, which wobbled and spilled hot coffee over my desk. Fortunately, it didn’t fall over completely, and the damage from the coffee was confined to a small spot beside my keyboard.

  “Don’t scare me like that,” I reproached as I pulled some tissues from my purse to mop up the spill. “I almost spilled coffee all over my computer.”

  “Sorry,” Junior replied, but the smile on his face told me that he wasn’t very sorry at all. “You look funny when you get that concentrated and start talking to yourself. Did you find anything?”

  “A little,” I responded. “The Weavers made some pretty big payments to an overseas account about six months ago, which matches the timeline that Kamya gave us. Before you ask, no, I couldn’t trace it, but I did find some email records here that indicate Daniel was in communication with someone about buying Kamya. Ew, I feel gross just saying that.”

  “I know,” Junior grimaced. “I just finished interrogating Mr. Bradshaw, and he and his wife both kept trying to downplay everything like it wasn’t that big of a deal that they were keeping children locked in their homes. It’s disgusting.”

  “It is,” I sighed sadly. I joined MBLIS because I knew that I could use my skills to make a difference, but it never got any easier learning about all the vile things people were willing to do for a buck. “I couldn’t trace the email either, which tells me that whoever’s sending the children over here knows enough to at least cover their tracks better than Daniel did. I’m hoping I’ll find something else on one of the other suspect’s devices.”

  “I wouldn’t count on it,” Junior responded bleakly.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “The Weavers were the main ones running the show,” Junior explained. “Mr. and Mrs. Bradshaw both insisted that Daniel was the one who always acquired the kids for everyone, so I doubt anyone else will have records of the transactions on their computers.

  “Well, shoot,” I grumbled. “I’ll have a look, anyway. We shouldn’t give up until we’ve exhausted every possible avenue.”

  “Alright,” Junior sighed. “Well, I’m going to get back to work so I can get notes on Charlie and Naomi’s interrogations. I’ll call you later, okay?” He smiled before leaving my office, and I smiled back. I couldn’t let myself get distracted while I was still at work, though, so I turned back to my desk and plugged Daniel’s phone into my computer.

  The phone prompted me for a fingerprint scan before it would open. This would make it a little more difficult to hack than the computers had been, but I wasn’t about to give up so easily. We had the Weaver’s fingerprints on file as part of our investigation, so it was only a matter of taking the image and uploading it to the phone in a way that would trick the program into thinking it was reading Daniel’s fingerprint. A second later, the phone opened, and I smiled in satisfaction. To be honest, using this kind of technology to hack phones was a legal gray area, even for the FBI. As long as no one explicitly forbade me from doing so, though, I would continue to do whatever I could to hunt down criminals and save children.

  It seemed like Daniel hadn’t done anything to safeguard his phone. He’d probably assumed the fingerprint lock was secure enough, which was fortunate for me because it meant all of his texts were out in the open for me to peruse through. He’d had multiple conversations going on with several of the neighbors regarding the matter of acquiring children for them, but one conversation stuck out to me in particular. Daniel texted this person more often than anyone else, and every text was about a different couple requesting a child. The other person only responded with short, curt texts, and it was clear that they were the ones sending the children over.

  The contact was listed only as “supplier.” I opened a tracking program on my computer. If I were to call this number, I’d be able to trace it if I could get whoever was on the other end to stay on the line long enough. Once I had everything set up and ready to begin tracing as soon as the call connected, I went to call the number, but I hesitated as my finger hovered over the green call button. If I spooked them, they might realize we were onto them and run. However, the longer we waited to try to contact them, the higher the likelihood that they would find out that the Weavers were dead and that their friends had been arrested, which could also cause them to run.

  In the end, I decided to follow my gut and call them. I waited tensely as the phone rang, poised and ready to begin tracing the call the second someone answered. No one ever did, though, and I felt defeated and empty as the ringing stopped and a generic voicemail message began to play. The fact that no one had answered made me feel nervous. Perhaps whoever’s phone number it was had already heard that the Weavers were dead? It had been a pretty big scandal, after all. News reporters had descended upon the scene just a few minutes after the police had. Poor Junior, Charlie, and Naomi had looked so tired when they got back, so it wouldn’t be surprising if whoever had been supplying the kids already knew the police were investigating.

  I stood up and left my office to speak with Wallace. If they did know, then we had even less time to move than we’d previously thought. Wallace’s office was located at the end of the bullpen, just like it had been in our last building. I knocked twice and waited for him to look up and wave me inside before entering.

  “Hello, Agent Gardner,” he greeted me. “is everything okay?”

  “I don’t think so,” I answered. “I found a few things on Daniel Weaver’s computer and phone. Most of it only confirmed what we’d already suspected, but I did manage to find a telephone number that I believe belongs to the person who was supplying the neighborhood with all the children.”

  “Is that right?” he responded, his tone serious.

  “Yes,” I replied. “Unfortunately, I think that whoever that is might already know we’re on the case. I attempted to call the number using Daniel’s phone, but no one answered. Now that I’m saying that out loud, I realize it sounds kind of silly to assume that just because they didn’t answer means that they know something, but I just have a feeling that they do.”

  “You should trust that feeling then,” Wallace nodded. “We, as human beings, are more perceptive than we often give ourselves credit for. If something in your gut is telling you that, you shouldn’t second guess yourself.”

  “Thank you, Director,” I smiled. I was glad that he’d trusted me and hadn’t just brushed off my concerns.

  “Unfortunately,” he continued, “that leaves us in a bit of a predicament. From what I’ve heard, the interrogations aren’t yielding a lot of particularly useful information, and if we can’t rely on the one lead we have from the suspect’s computers, we don’t have much else to go on.”

  “There might be someone else who would help,” I offered. “A woman named Sandra Baker. She runs a non-profit here in Las Vegas dedicated to stopping child trafficking. A pamphlet for the organization was found in the Weavers’ home, and Daniel had visited the organization’s web page several times before his death
. Charlie thinks they might have been studying it as a way to not get caught, but they might have had some kind of run-in with them.”

  “It’s a long shot,” Wallace shrugged. “But it’s something. I’ll have Agent Hills and Agent Patel check it out as soon as they’re finished with their interrogations. Thank you, Agent Gardner. Let me know if you find out anything else.”

  “Of course, sir,” I nodded before leaving his office.

  I used my phone to check the time and saw that it was a little past noon. Charlie, Naomi, and Junior had been conducting interrogations all morning, and I wondered when they would be finished. Junior had said a total of six couples had been arrested, which meant they’d be conducting twelve interrogations in total. At fifteen to twenty minutes each, that would take hours to do, and that wasn’t even including the time it would take to switch the suspects in and out of the interrogation room.

  As I was walking back to my office, I saw Miranda sitting along in the bullpen.

  “Are you okay?” I asked as I walked up to her. She looked a little sad, which was unusual for Miranda, who could make a joke out of anything.

  “I’m fine, Fi,” she whined. “Just bored as heck. Naomi is off with Junior and Charlie doing those interrogations, and I got so bored I actually finished all the paperwork from the Italy mission.” She patted the folder on her desk in emphasis.

  “Wow,” I remarked dramatically. “It must have been bad if you actually did your own paperwork for once.”

  “Shut up,” she smiled and rolled her eyes at me. “I’m kind of jealous, too, I guess. Naomi gets to be part of the mission even though it’s technically supposed to be Charlie and Junior’s.”

  “Well, isn’t it because she speaks Hindi?” I asked. “She’s the only one who can really communicate with the kids.”

  “Yes, I know,” Miranda sighed. “I already feel guilty about being jealous. Don’t make me feel worse!”