LONG VIEW, NC -- A baby is fine, but his mother and grandmother could be in trouble after an Amber Alert was issued in Catawba County.

The call went out Thursday night for a 10-month-old boy taken from an apartment by two strangers. The alert lasted for about and hour-and-a-half before police said the parents' story didn’t add up.

"I received calls from Spartanburg to Greenville, North Carolina," said Lieutenant Rick Coffey of the Long View Police.

The search, it turns out, was for nothing.

"Certainly it would free up some other resources," said Coffey.

The parents reported two women pretending to work for the Department of Social services took their boy. Police said the two women were the boy's grandmother and aunt, and that the mother knew the whole time.

"Our investigation will probably reveal that," said Coffey.

That's where the story takes an unexpected turn.

The mother is Asian and the father Latino.

Police said that per cultural custom, the boy's father owed his in-laws a dowry, or payment, for marrying their daughter and that dowry had not been paid.

"It's possible," said Coffey, "but it's still under investigation."

While police said there were no "fake" DSS workers, there will be a real call Friday to DSS and the District Attorney's Office, to see if they want to file charges of kidnapping and filing a false police report.