Kingston Kidnappings (What Happens In Vegas Book 3) by Matt Lincoln (classic books for 10 year olds txt) 📕

“That can’t be it,” Wallace frowned. “You saw the truck the same night that we got our hands on the tracking devices, right, Castillo? That would mean that the traffickers managed to get to our location awfully quickly. It’s more likely that they already knew the location of our office. Furthermore, we established that the signal was transmitting to an address in Jamaica, which makes it even less likely that they’d be able to dispatch someone to our office so quickly.”

“Then it must have been the supplier,” I concluded. “The one whose number we found on the Weavers, the Anderson’s, and Atkins’s phone records. The one based within the United States. He must have realized we were onto him, somehow.”

“Her,” Miranda corrected. “Atkins told us the person he spoke to on the phone was a woman, but it was a man who showed up to his house with the kid. When he said that I thought maybe they were just using a female member of the group to pose as the children’s mother, but what if the woman he spoke to was the supplier?”

“That would explain why she sent one of the men instead of going herself,” I nodded. “In case something went wrong, she wouldn’t be caught.”

“That still doesn’t explain how she found us so quickly,” Wallace interjected. “Let’s regroup back at the office. We can go over the events of the past week and figure out when our information might have been leaked.”

“I’ve alerted Charlie and Miranda,” Nelson informed us as he put his phone away. “They were just about to get on the plane to Bermuda. They were already operating under the assumption that the group was aware of them since one of the suspects they were after last night escaped. I’ve told them to be extra cautious in any case.”

“Let’s go then,” Wallace nodded as he stood up.

The rest of us followed and headed toward the entrance of the hospital. As I walked out of the cool building and back into the blisteringly dry Las Vegas heat, I couldn’t shake the dreadful feeling that I was missing something. The supplier had clearly become aware of us far sooner than any of us had realized, and I couldn’t figure out how she could have gotten that information when we’d gone to such lengths to keep our agency’s name out of the media coverage.

27

Naomi

I sank back into my seat and chewed my lower lip nervously as I digested everything that Nelson had just told me. Junior and Miranda had been involved in a car accident. Thankfully, both appeared to be fine.

That news alone would have been sufficient enough to twist my stomach into knots, but that wasn’t the only reason I felt anxious. Charlie and I were currently on a flight bound for Bermuda, the suspected location of the trafficking group’s home base, and coincidentally where my parents happened to live. I knew it was pathetic of me to feel nervous just at the thought of going there. I’d already had an in-depth conversation about this with Charlie, who’d knocked some sense back into me. Or so I’d thought. It was irritating how just the thought of running into my parents made me forget that I was a confident and successful federal agent and instead made me feel like a helpless young girl again.

I told myself that I was worrying for nothing. Sure, we were going to Bermuda, but it was still an entire country. What were the odds that I’d run into them even if we were there?

Fairly high, actually, considering the fact that at two-thousand square feet in size, Bermuda was about the same size as the smallest state in the US, or one-fiftieth the size of Nevada.

I shook my head to dispel the thought. Charlie was right about what he’d told me earlier. I wouldn’t be any use to this mission if I spent the entire time worrying about my own issues. I needed to get past this and focus on the task at hand. I wasn’t going to run into them, and even if I did, I wasn’t a frightened, helpless girl anymore.

“You said you recognized the name of the hotel?” Charlie’s voice suddenly broke me out of my thoughts. He was casting me a wary look, and I knew at once that the anxiety I’d been feeling must have been evident in my face.

“Yes,” I answered, schooling my features into something more neutral and composed. “It’s a nice hotel, located right on the edge of the beach and overlooking the water. It’s popular among tourists. Only popular among tourists, in fact, as it’s unlikely many of the locals could afford to stay there.”

“Well, we’ve established that the trafficking trade is pretty lucrative,” Charlie scoffed. “I’m not surprised the leader of the trafficking group is staying there, local or not.”

“Indeed,” I nodded. “It’s also possible he might be meeting with potential buyers. It would fit the pattern we’ve seen so far. The majority of the children we’ve recovered were given to wealthy couples.”

We lapsed into silence after that short conversation, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. When Charlie had first joined MBLIS, I’d made the assumption that he was unfriendly and perhaps a bit dim. I’d since come to realize that he just wasn’t a man of many words. He spoke when necessary but otherwise seemed content to listen and observe.

The flight from Jamaica to Bermuda was short at only two hours compared to the eight it had taken us to get from the United States to Jamaica. It had actually been quite peaceful, and I’d enjoyed having a two-hour respite from the case. Now that we’d landed, however, I could feel myself buzzing with anticipation. I felt as though we were standing on the precipice, just inches away from finally catching the leader of the trafficking group.

The L.F. Wade International Airport in Bermuda was smaller than the one we’d seen in Jamaica,