Cut & Run Read Free

husband, Scott Jensen, or Scotty, as he was called by family and friends, whom Rachel had come to Mexico to find. She’d received a tip while she was in Florida wrapping up another missing-persons case that Scotty had been linked to a child abduction ring that was busted in Cozumel. After the FBI seized computers belonging to members of the ring in a warrant search, they’d combed through all the files—and found a picture of Mallory along with several other photos of young children. Rachel had demanded to see the photo and had started to sob at the image of her round-faced toddler with large green eyes and red hair in pigtails. All the data they’d found pointed to the fact that the children in the images had been kidnapped and put up for illegal adoption.
    When Rachel arrived in Cozumel, she met with the FBI agent in charge, Hammond Lewis. He’d told her how everything transpired. It all started when a family on vacation in Cozumel reported that their toddler girl was missing. When the FBI was called in to investigate, fingers started pointing toward a housekeeper and her son who worked at the hotel where the girl’s family had been staying. After obtaining a search warrant, the FBI found the computer in the housekeeper’s cottage with pictures and profiles of children who were allegedly kidnapped. There were also files on the families who were looking to adopt—and from the looks of it, most of them were quite wealthy. The housekeeper was arrested along with her son. The son wasn’t talking, but the housekeeper was denying any involvement. One good thing came out of it: the little girl who’d been kidnapped had been found safe in a nearby house and was reunited with her family. Two women who were found in the house taking care of the girl were also arrested. In the investigation, it was found that the house was deeded by a dummy corporation that the FBI traced to a couple from Miami: Helen and Dirk Amsel. Rachel thought back to her first meeting with the FBI when she came to Cozumel, still paddling back toward the coastline as she went over all the details in her head.
    “So how exactly is Scotty Jensen involved?” Rachel had asked Agent Hammond Lewis.
    “We believe he is the mule of the operation.” Lewis had explained to her again how the FBI believed the illegal adoption ring was formed. “Helen and Dirk Amsel were the masterminds of the operation and may have recruited Scotty to find potential children to kidnap. Those children were kept in a ‘safe house’ until they were adopted by unsuspecting wealthy families who would do anything and pay an absurd amount of money to adopt a child. Several e-mails between Scotty, the Amsels, and the housekeeper’s son were found on the same computer that held Mallory’s photo.”
    “Did any of those e-mails mention Mallory?” Rachel had asked him.
    Agent Lewis had shaken his head. “So far, no. We just have her photo.”
    Rachel recognized the photo found on the seized computer as one of the many pictures of Mallory that was taken during a birthday party for a mutual friend the weekend before Mallory disappeared. She had given the FBI the details of the party and who had attended. “It was held at a local public park,” she’d told Agent Lewis, trying to hold back tears. “Anyone could have taken the photo.”
    Over the course of the two weeks that Rachel was in Cozumel, she’d had two more meetings with the FBI. She had told them that she didn’t know Dirk or Helen Amsel or any of the other parties involved in the kidnapping ring that had been arrested so far. She explained to Agent Lewis her seemingly coincidental relationship to Scotty Jensen.
    “Shortly after Mallory went missing, I met Janine Jensen. She was separated from Scotty and was trying to get full custody of their son. During the investigation of her son’s disappearance, I found out that Scotty had previously worked for Rick Scott Imports, my ex-husband’s car dealership, as a mechanic.