Chapter 49 : Mysterious Girl

Captain Charles Sween's POV

I had been a police officer for almost twenty years. I had conducted dozens of different investigations, but this one had an unusual flavor. Cases involving children always stood out to me. I was at my desk writing reports when one of the officers in my unit, Detective Marx, walked into my office.

"Captain, we got a new case. A matter of child abduction." He said, handing me the thin investigation file.

"Can you tell me more about it?"

"The boy was taken away in a car by a woman while he was in the family home. The woman is married to a friend of the parents. She apparently has severe psychiatric problems."

"Have you managed to track down the vehicle?"

"No, not yet, the area where this happened is a quiet neighborhood. There are no cameras! I asked the boy's mother to think about where this woman might have taken him."

"All right," I said, grabbing my phone, "I'll call the DA and have him open an investigation and give us access to the security cameras. In the meantime, I want every cop in the area to keep an eye out."

"Captain, don't you think the prosecutor is going to tell us that we couldn't launch the investigation before the twenty-four-hour mark after the disappearance?"

"Detective, this is not a rule. It's just done so that we don't launch investigations for simple runaway children. This kid is not even three years old and he was kidnapped by a woman with a psychiatric history. We must act as fast as possible to find him! Every second counts! Now let's get to work!"

After Detective Marx left my office, I called the district attorney. As I had predicted, he instantly launched the investigation.

A few minutes later, I left for the kidnapper's apartment where the victim's mother was waiting for us.

"Mrs. Torres," I began, "we haven't been able to locate the car yet, but we have unlimited access to the county's video surveillance cameras. We are going to do everything we can to find your son. Do you have any idea where this woman might have gone?"

"To be honest, I don't know her very well. I just met her. She's just married to an old friend of mine, Erica. If you want to know more about Isla, she's the one to ask."

At this point, a blonde woman approached us and introduced herself as the wife of the alleged kidnapper. She told me the story of her wife and how she had been affected by not being able to adopt a child. She explained to me that the real reason for the denial of the adoption was the woman's history of psychiatric hospitalization.

As I listened to this woman talk about the madness of the woman she loved, I felt so sorry for her. These two women had spent years being happy, but one day this woman's troubled past had come back to the surface and crushed all their happiness.

As we were talking, another blonde woman with a little girl came in. I soon realized that they were the mother and sister of this little William. Mrs. Torres took his wife and daughter in her arms and I could feel in their eyes the distress they were feeling at that moment. I let them enjoy this moment with their family while I went to discuss with my unit to brief them.

"Do you have any idea where this woman is?" One of my lieutenants asked me, as he knew my abilities as a profiler.

"To be honest, I have the impression that the truth is not very far away. But I feel like we are missing the key to the solution. Some of you should go to all the places related to the adoption that she had initiated."

"What does that mean?" Detective Marx asked me.

"If this event is what triggered everything, she must have gone to a place that reminded her of that moment. For example, the place where the child she wanted to adopt is now, or the office of the social worker who denied the adoption."

"And what about the rest of the unit," another policeman continued, "what are we supposed to do?"

"Keep looking for that car. She has only been gone about three hours, so she could not have gotten very far. Also, see if she used her credit card or left any kind of trail that would give us her location."

"What are you going to do?"

"I need to talk to this woman's therapist, I need to get a better idea of what was going on in her mind when she took that kid!"

Ten minutes later, I called the number of Dr. James, the therapist who had been treating Isla Hahn for several years. In these types of investigations where every second was important, it is always best to call.

"Hello, Doctor. I'm Captain Sween and I'd like to talk to you about one of your patients, Isla Hahn."