Stolen Lives: A Detective Mystery Series SuperBoxset (12 page)

Twenty- four hours,
she thought to herself.

Miriam hadn’t slept in days, it seemed, and it was certain to be a long night. Did she even have a chance? Why would Phillip Anderson make it possible to find him? Little made sense, and she was quickly losing control of the situation. Lou could help get her mind right, that was if he’d answer his phone. The call went to voicemail, and Miriam left a message.

“Hey, I need you to call me back as soon as you get this message. It’s important. Thanks.”

She hung up and set her phone down wondering what he was tied up with. Palm Dale was the farthest thing from her mind. The situation there was scary—vigilante justice, in-fighting among jurisdictions, the FBI, the Andersons, and the news media.

Though things weren’t much better at her house in Sarasota either. She had hastily fled a crime scene amid hordes of news cameras crowded outside on her lawn. Then it became clear as day: Her attempts to slip away and start a new life for the past year had failed. She was back in the spotlight again. This was also evident by the number of missed calls on her phone, many from unrecognizable numbers.

They traveled north for about twenty minutes as Miriam scanned the radio for any recent developments. She found hip-hop, classic rock, and salsa stations, but no news. It was almost a relief to her. Allison had remained quiet for the most part, and the small talk they tried to engage in was limited and strained. She was tired. Probably hungry too. Miriam didn’t want to push her too much in her current state.

“Hungry?” she asked finally. “We could stop at McDonalds or something if you’d like.”

Allison stared out the window in a daze as they passed a series of gas stations and fast food restaurants on the busy highway. “Not really,” she responded.

“You’re going to eat once we get to the hospital, okay? That’s non-negotiable.”

Allison shrugged. Ahead, a few blocks down, on their right was a large, bright, four-story building complex with signs pointing every which way and palm trees symmetrically planted along every road. The hospital was in view. Miriam began to feel a little better. Allison could get the care she needed, and Miriam could possibly get answers. As they pulled into the busy patient lot, her cell phone rang with yet another number she didn’t recognize. This time, out of sheer curiosity, she answered it.

“Ms. Castillo?”
an eager man’s voice asked.

“Yes?”

“This is Agent Nettles with the FBI—”

“How’d you get my number?” She was glad to hear from them but also highly skeptical.

“We’re FBI, ma’am. It isn’t very hard.”

She wanted to speak to Lou. “Where’s Detective Albini?”

Nettles paused. She could hear a dozen other side conversations around him and didn’t envy him one bit. “Uh. He should be around here somewhere. But I didn’t call to talk about him. I’m calling to get an update from you.”

“An update?” she asked, searching for parking.

“No one has seen or heard from you in hours. I’m getting calls about a crime scene in Sarasota. Your face is all over the news. Greg Anderson gets beaten and hung from a tree. And the Snatcher is still loose. Ms. Castillo, we’re in a world of shit right now.”

“I have a situation of my own here,” she responded, pulling into a space at the end of the third lane down.

“Oh yeah?”
Nettles said.

“That’s right,” she said.

“Are we going to have to put an APB out on you as well?” he
asked.

“Not necessary. I’m at Mercy Hospital in Miami-Dade County.”

Apparently flummoxed, Nettles didn’t immediately respond. “What are you doing there?”

“I’m with a young girl. Her name is Allison, and she just might be the key in getting to Phillip Anderson.”

Nettles was demanding and pushy. “How… what is going on? What have you gotten yourself into?”

“I need help, Agent Nettles,” she said. “I need all I can get if I ever want to see my daughter again.”

Remembrance

Miriam parked near the emergency room and then took Allison by the hand and walked through the automatic double doors. In their haste, they passed doctors, nurses, patients, and staff. She checked Allison in at the front desk, describing the matter as one of a delicate nature.

“I’ll need the number to the sheriff’s department as well, please.”

After getting Allison admitted, Miriam did her best to explain the situation to the front desk and subsequently, the doctors and nurses. A bald-headed Indian man with a thin mustache, a Dr. Aji Bhandari introduced himself as the attending physician. He was dressed in a white coat and carrying a clipboard, and jotted a few notes as he talked with Miriam and a nurse checked Allison’s vitals in a closed patient’s room. Miriam explained Allison’s condition as best she could: psychological trauma and perhaps physical abuse. Dr. Bhandari nodded but showed no reaction.

“Once the police get here, I need them to track her parents and bring them here as well.”

“Why did you not go to the police first?” he asked. “This man, you say, is still out there.”

Miriam signaled the doctor to the side and spoke softly. “She’s been through enough as it is. I need to get her in a relaxed setting, have her checked for injuries, and find out what she knows about the man who kidnapped her.”

“So you’re a cop?” he asked.

“I used to be,” she said. “This girl is part of something big that stretches far beyond this county and the next. The FBI will be here soon as well.”

Dr. Bhandari’s eyes widened. “The FBI?”

She looked at him with an earnest nod and spoke quietly as the nurse pumped the Velcro band wrapped more tightly around Allison’s skinny arm. “We’re going to need a room where we won’t be disturbed. Some place where we can check her for injuries, and let her get some rest.”

Dr. Bhandari pressed his lips together and looked around the room. He wasn’t pleased. “Maybe you’d have better luck at the police station. We’re running a hospital here, and while I respect the situation, we simply don’t have the resources to facilitate this investigation.”

“You’ve heard of the Snatcher, right?” Miriam asked, stopping him.

Dr. Bhandari thought to himself. “Yes…”

“And you may or may not have heard that there’s a manhunt for him throughout South Florida.”

Dr. Bhandari held his hands out at his sides in a gesture of futility. “I heard of him, but did not know about any manhunt.”

“This girl,” Miriam began, pointing to the side. “She escaped from wherever he was hiding. And she’s our only chance of finding him.”

“I understand that, but—”

Miriam folded her hands together. “So please… work with me here.” She held back from going into too many details involving Ana or anything else, but her intensity convinced Dr. Bhandari that she meant business.

“Okay,” the doctor said. “We’ll assign her a room.”

The hospital soon had its share of law enforcement as a dozen county sheriff’s department personnel convened in the lobby and some upstairs, responding quickly after Miriam placed the call for help. The crowd grew even larger when the FBI arrived on the scene via helicopter, followed by several Lee County investigators, including Lou.

Then followed Allison’s parents, Jack and Shelly Clifton, who had arrived disheveled and distraught. They had filed a police report after their daughter disappeared while playing in the yard, and looked both terrified and happy.

Allison’s room had been cleared, leaving authorities to loiter in the brightly lit hall outside, discussing their next move, while Allison sat upright in her bed on the other side of the closed door, alone with her parents. Dr. Bhandari looked overwhelmed by the assemblage of police and FBI, but attempted to stay focused and inform Miriam of Allison’s shifting condition.

“No signs of physical damage or trauma,” he continued, reading from his clipboard. “She had an acute level of dehydration, coupled with a bad level of shock.”

“So he never touched her?” Miriam asked.

Dr. Bhandari looked up with a brow raised as Detective Nettles and Lou approached from the side, listening.

“There are… no signs of physical abuse or trauma, like I said,” he continued.

Miriam thought to herself, then asked the doctor what he recommended.

“A good night’s sleep and plenty of liquids. Some food would be nice too…” he paused.

“She’s not eating?” Miriam asked. She recalled Allison turning down McDonalds—almost unheard of for a child.

Dr. Bhandari shifted impatiently as though he had a million other places to be. “Her parents are trying their best right now.”

Miriam peeked inside Allison’s room, beyond the blinds and could see Allison on her bed with a plate of food on a tray. Her mother held a fork and was trying to feed her. Her father stood over them both, brushing back her hair with his hand. She reluctantly opened her mouth and took a bite.

“How long was she in captivity?” Agent Nettles asked, cutting in.

Dr. Bhandari looked around as a nurse approached, urgently calling his name.

“Thank you, Doctor,” Miriam said, ending their conversation, having learned what she needed to know, and noticing how busy he was. He nodded and disappeared—on to his next patient or issue.

Miriam turned to Nettles. He was a young agent, maybe even younger than she was. He had an unappealing cockiness, but if he could bring the FBI effectively into the fray, she’d take whatever she could get. Lou had said little since showing up. Miriam suspected that he was still peeved at her for going it alone earlier that day. She had a lot of explaining to do.

Miriam told him and Nettles about Allison’s abduction. “She was reported missing earlier today around 2:00 p.m., after coming home from school.”

With a dazed, beleaguered look, Lou rubbed his hands through his hair with an exhausted sigh. “Holy crap. What day is this?”

“Friday,” Nettles said. His eyes remained on Miriam. “Then what?”

Miriam tugged at the ends of her jacket, growing tired of recounting the story again. But Nettles needed to hear every detail, and she was ready to work together as a team to bring down the Snatcher once and for all. “Police estimate that she was in captivity for six to seven hours. Where she was held, no one knows. She was thrown in a van and blindfolded by a man who doesn’t fit Phillip Anderson’s description.”

“So he’s got other guys doing this for him?” Lou asked.

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Miriam said. “Ray Gowdy? Remember?”

Moving on, Nettles leaned in closer to interrogate her. “And these men you met. They tried to kill you?”

Miriam nodded. “I believed my life was in danger, yes.”

Struggling, Lou scratched his head again. “I don’t get it. Why would he go through all the trouble to trot out some decoy if he was just going to kill you?”

“He wanted to take me prisoner. Those were his new terms if I was to ever see my daughter again.”

Nettles and Lou exchanged glances, then looked back at her.

“So you shot all three men, just like that?”

Miriam’s face was hardened, showing no remorse. “They had that little girl wearing a bag. I thought…”

“You thought it was Ana,” Lou said, answering for her.

She bit her bottom lip, nodding, then clenched her eyes shut and covered her face with her hands.

“It’s all right,” Nettles said calmly. “We’re going to find this guy. What choice do we have now? It’s a complete shit-show at your station, and we’ve got a massacre at some abandoned theater and a wanted man on the loose. What’s not to love about this case?”

Miriam smiled slightly, choking back tears.

“You couldn’t leave
one
of those guys alive?” Lou asked. “You know, that would have made our jobs a lot easier.” He seemed a tad upset and Miriam could understand. With her daughter’s life on the line, she wasn’t the easiest person to work with.

“I didn’t mean to kill them all,” she said innocently.

Nettles shook his head and pointed at her. “We need to get you to a shrink.”

Lou and Miriam both laughed nervously. The hallway, recently filled with law men, began to clear out as the Miami-Dade officers considered their job more-or-less done.

A separate FBI team had taken control of the crime scene at the theater. They had been in regular contact with Nettles and when pressed by Miriam for information, he offered a blunt assessment.

“No ID was recovered on any of the bodies, but we’re fairly certain that they were contract men.”

“Hired guns,” Lou added.

“And there’s probably a lot more where those came from.”

“I thought that his assets were frozen,” Miriam said.

“We did too,” Nettles said. “Looks like he’d hidden at least one account beforehand. This wily wacko is on the run.”

Lou turned to Miriam, notepad in hand, and in full detective mode. “So he called you after the, uh, shoot-out?”

Miriam reached into her jacket pocket. “Not quite.” She pulled out the ringleader’s flip phone, caked in dried blood. “He called one of the men I shot.”

Both Lou and Nettles seemed surprised. Lou turned back to Miriam. “Evidence from a crime scene? Miriam, you should know better.”

She handed it to him. “It’s all yours. I’m sure you can have a team extract whatever info’s on it.”

Nettles studied them both while rolling up the sleeves of his white button-down shirt. An ID badge hung around his neck dangling in front of his red tie. He breathed heavily, deep in thought, then touched Miriam’s arm like a concerned father.

“This is what we’re going to do. We take you in another room and deputize you immediately—FBI assistant, sheriff’s deputy, I don’t give a shit. You’re getting in way too deep.”

“You almost got yourself killed back there,” Lou added judgmentally.

Miriam could do without the lecture, but personal pride was the least concerning thing on her mind. She needed them.

“We know why you did it,” Nettles said. “But maybe Captain Porter was right when he said you need to step back from this.”

“Get your head above the water,” Lou said, chiming in.