Fight For Me by Claudia Burgoa

Chapter Thirty-Two

Luna

We’reon a private jet heading to Mexico City. I settle back in my seat as I process the information Harrison provided me. The forensic information is easy to digest. Five-year-old male, brown eyes, blond hair, forty-three inches tall, fifty-two pounds, with a scar on the corner of his left eyebrow. He was last seen wearing his school uniform.

The last time his nanny saw him was at the playground. Witnesses say that he was in the park playing with his friends when a couple of large dogs— could’ve been German Shepherds or Dobermans—charged toward the children. Everyone began to scramble, adults and kids. The owner appeared right behind them, and though it took him time, he was able to control them and take them with him. Once everyone settled, little Esteban wasn’t around.

An hour later, the father received a call from an untraceable phone. The voice on the other end demanded a million dollars in exchange for their son. According to the father, the voice sounded like it was coming from a machine. Three hours later, a box with the shoes the little boy was wearing and a note appeared on their doorstep. The note said they shouldn’t call the police, and they had seventy-two hours to respond to their demand if they wanted to see him alive.

“Unmarked bills. They didn’t ask for an untraceable transfer,” I repeat, leaning my head against the window and watching the fluffy clouds under us. “You said that something similar happened with the kid next door too. Do we have more on that case?”

“There’s no such thing as an untraceable transfer,” Harrison clarifies.

“There are a few similarities between one and the other,” Tiago responds.

The sound of typing makes me turn in his direction. Harrison is at the computer. My brother’s eyes are focused on his iPad, and he continues giving me what I need, but without giving me the slightest glance.

“The kid next door disappeared during a school field trip,” Tiago says. “His parents blamed the teacher and the principal for their negligence. There’s a lawsuit pending.”

“Were they the same age?”

“No, the child next door was eight, and they requested less money. Only two hundred thousand,” he says.

“The two houses share something. And it’s more than the neighborhood. Nannies, housekeepers. They share an activity, like soccer? What is it? We have to interview everyone.”

“We don’t have much time to do that. They gave them seventy-two hours. We only have fifty left to find this kid,” Harrison says evenly, still typing. “And if we start interviewing people, we might be alerting the kidnappers that we are onto them.”

“Can you pull any footage of the CCTV around the park?” I ask, trying to contemplate other ways to find out more without interviewing witnesses.

“Mason is pulling the video as we speak. He’s letting the people who hired us know that it might take us a couple of days to reach them,” Harrison responds.

I take the folder on top of the table, looking at the picture of the little boy. There’s a glow in those eyes and a sweetness in that smile. We have to reach him soon, before it’s all lost. I put the picture down and close the folder again. “How did they return his body?”

“The file says that the parents delivered the money four hours after the deadline. A day later they received the body inside of a black bag.” Harrison glances at me, his eyebrows drawing together. He takes a deep breath. “The note read, ‘You were too late.’”

My heart thunders, I clasp my hands together. “Was there an autopsy that could confirm the TOD?”

“TOD?” Harrison frowns.

“Time of death,” I clarify. “They could’ve killed the kid right after kidnapping him. It’s happened.”

The autopsy was waived because the cause of death was obvious. They slit his throat. There’s no further information about it. It’d be helpful to learn whose idea it was to waive it. Was it the parents, a cop, someone in the family? I hate to think that a dirty cop could be involved, but in some countries, the cop’s salaries are so low, they accept bribes from criminals.

“Are these the first kidnappings around the area?” I study the plane’s cabin and sigh because there’s nowhere to set a board with pictures and links to the abductee.

“Unfortunately, no. These are the first cases in the past couple of months, though.”

That is good news but still awful. I open the folder again. I can feel my chest aching at the sight of little Esteban smiling in his picture. I need more data to find the pattern. Criminals who make a living out of extortion tend to duplicate their behavior with only slight changes.

“Did someone interview the dog owner?”

“They called off the investigation right after they received the call,” Harrison informs me.

I nod. Of course, they called it off.

“If I needed the report on each of the kidnappings that have happened over the past few months, how long would it take?” I throw the question up in the air but hope that maybe Harrison can give me an answer.

“What else do you need?” Harrison asks, though he never turns his attention to me.

“Places where they happened, footage, pictures. I have to find the pattern. There’s a pattern somewhere.” I recall their request to not call the police. They’ll know what’s going on around the parents’ house. Either they are insiders, or they are connected with the law enforcement of the city. “Police involvement, too. As in I want to know their response to each case, if they help to investigate, took it lightly, or what. Do they assume these are different criminals? And how many kids have come home too?”

Harrison checks his watch, then the screen and finally turns to look at me. “We land in three hours. Mason and Anderson will be landing in about twenty minutes. He hopes to have most of the information you requested ready in about one, maybe two hours.”

The tension leaves my body, but I shoot an incredulous glance in his direction. “That’s a week’s worth of work and you’re telling me you’re going to have it in a couple of hours?”

“Most of it.” He closes his laptop and sets it to the side. “We can’t interview people or investigate the places because we’re not there. However, if there’s data in the computers, we can hack it.”

“Do you think everything is connected, Luna?” Tiago asks, finally putting down his tablet.

I nod, tapping the folder. “At least a few of them, if not all of them. I just don’t understand why no one has done something to stop this before now.”

Harrison reaches out for my hand as he rises from his seat. “We’ll try to bring him home.”