by Josi Kilpack
Then she stopped in the middle of the trail. She took a deep whiff and smelled campfire smoke. Smoke meant people. At nearly the same moment, she heard something behind her, and she took off toward the smoke like a shot. Maybe it was a falling branch or an animal—she didn’t dare look back to see if it was him.
She moved as fast as she dared, stumbling over a rough path she couldn’t see, the smell getting stronger, her legs getting weaker, until she was barely moving again. She heard something. A voice? She froze. Was it him? She listened again, trying to control her ragged breaths enough to hear over them. The voice laughed. It was feminine—a woman—but still seemed very far away. Her mother’s admonishment from when she was a child rang in her ears. “If you ever get lost, find another mommy. She’ll help you find me.”
“Help me,” she tried to yell as she stumbled forward, but it came out as little more than a hoarse whisper. She moved ahead and tried to work some saliva up in her mouth. She looked around for more snow, but in the darkness she couldn’t see any and didn’t want to risk getting off the trail. “Help me!” she yelled again. This time it was almost audible.
“Please,” she said, as the tears started to fall. She was so close, but she didn’t have any idea where he was. She had to find that voice, yet she couldn’t afford to go silent and still long enough to listen for it again. The smell of campfire was stronger than ever, but she couldn’t tell exactly what direction it was coming from.
“Help me!” she yelled again. This time it was full force, surprising even herself. “Help!” she yelled again. She tripped over a tree root. It sent her careening into another tree. Her knee crunched against the bark, closely followed by her forehead. Once on the ground, her hand wrapped around a thick stick. She used it to help get herself on her feet again; then she grabbed onto a tree and lifted the stick, hitting it against branches in hopes of alerting someone. “Help me,” she said and tried to take a step. Her knee rebelled and nearly sent her to the ground again. She steadied herself and realized she’d run as far as she could.
“Please, Heavenly Father,” she whispered, staving off her panic.
Then she took a deep breath, leaned against the tree, and shouted toward the sky. “Help me!”
She fell against the tree, her lungs still lobbying for air. She heard movement, leaves being shifted. She closed her eyes. If it was Colt, so help her, she’d die before she’d let him take her again.
“Oh!” she heard a startled woman’s voice say. Jess opened her eyes to see the glaring light of a flashlight. It moved from her face, and Jess squinted up to see a burly looking blonde staring at her in the darkness.
Jess dropped the stick, afraid it might look like a weapon. With her head bleeding, the last thing she needed was to scare this woman away. She opened her mouth while trying to figure out what words she would say.
The woman beat her to it. “Jessica?” she asked. “Jessica Thompson from the posters?”
79
Brad, go to the Columbia Falls police station as soon as you get into town.”
“We wanted to go to the cabin,” Brad said into his cell phone. It had been a very long, very fast drive, and yet the miles didn’t seem to go by quick enough.
“Brad,” the detective said. “Go to the police station. It’s located at 130 Sixth Street.”
“Okay,” Brad said, as dread filled his chest. He wanted to ask more questions, but he didn’t dare. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what had changed their plans. He clicked the phone shut and relayed the information to Kate.
She nodded and stared straight ahead. Had they found something? Would they act this way if they’d found Jess alive? Forty-one miles later, at nearly midnight, he pulled up to the boxlike building. He and Kate shared a look; then he leaned across the seat and took her into his arms. They said nothing—all the words too scary to say out loud. He wanted to tell her it would be okay, but would it?
They stepped out of the car and walked slowly inside. The station seemed awfully busy for a small town. They stood in the doorway, waiting for someone to approach them. It only took a moment for a female officer to come forward. “Mr. and Mrs. Thompson?” she asked. They nodded, and Kate sought Brad’s hand. He held on tight as they followed the officer down the hall toward a big brown door. Brad swallowed as they pushed the door open.
In the corner someone was wrapped up in a blanket. The head was down, the knees pulled up. Black matted hair was the only thing showing above the grey blanket. For an instant Brad thought it was the man who’d taken Jess, but then the head lifted. He froze. Her face was bruised, her hair a different color, but beneath the scratches and the dirt was his girl.
“Jess?” he said in a whisper. Kate caught her breath and squeezed his hand even tighter.
Jess looked at them, just staring as if not recognizing who they were. Then her eyes filled with tears.
“You came,” she said quietly.
The sound of her voice released their hesitancies. They both rushed forward, unable to reach her fast enough. They wrapped their arms around her, and the three of them sobbed. There were so many questions Brad wanted to ask, but he pushed them away. “Dear Father in Heaven,” he managed to choke out. “Thank you.”
“Please take me home,” Jess said after five of the most powerful minutes of Brad’s life. Both Brad and Kate pulled back, looking into the face of the daughter they had worried they would never see again. She looked from one to the other. “I’m so sorry.”
Kate shook her head. “It’s okay, sweetie,” she said, caressing Jess’s cheek. “We are just so happy to have you back.”
Jess looked skeptical.
“You know you’re safe now, right?” Brad asked. “You know that everything’s all right?”
Fresh tears filled Jess’s eyes, and she shook her head as if unable to accept that things could ever be all right again. “I just want to go home—can we just go home?”
“Yes,” Brad said with a sharp nod of his head. Kate looked at him, and the tears filled his eyes again as she took his hand. They had their second chance.
Epilogue
“Jess,” Kate said with a laugh. “Don’t fidget. It makes your head move.”
Jess stopped, but only for a moment. Then she started up again, pleating and repleating the skirt of her homecoming dress. Kate pinned up one more curl into the elaborate updo she’d been creating for over half an hour and sprayed the entire creation with more hairspray than was likely FDA approved. It looked great, if Kate did say so herself.
After they had brought Jess home in May, a sister in the ward had fixed Jess’s hair, taking it from black to a nice dark auburn that looked beautiful against Jess’s olive skin. With it pinned up, and her makeup just right, Jess looked exquisite. Once finished, Kate pulled up a chair and sat down with a considerable lack of grace, on account of her seven-months pregnant belly. Per doctor’s orders, Kate had gone onto partial bed rest at five months. Yet, at her appointment yesterday, her blood pressure had still been a few points higher. She was attempting to prepare herself for the next few months as best she could and had saved up all her “vertical time” in order to see Jess off tonight.
“Are you okay?” Kate asked, placing a hand on her belly as the baby kicked and squirmed.
Jess just shrugged. But then she stopped herself and looked at her mom. Kate knew it was part of Jess’s therapy that she not hold back her feelings. It was also part of Kate’s progression to take the time to listen—really listen. “I just . . . I feel so weird doing this, going to the homecoming dance like every other teenage girl.”
Kate smiled and nodded. “I can only imagine,” she said softly. “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to.” She’d said this about fifty times since Jess had come home to find her bedroom stuffed with balloons, floor to ceiling, two weeks earlier. She’d had to pop them all in order to figure out the message. She’d waited for the other kids to come home; then they all had a popping-party while Kate lay on the couch up
stairs. But once the fun was over, insecurities had risen up.
“I know that,” Jess said. “And I want to go. It’s just . . .”
Kate squeezed her daughter’s hand. “I know,” she said, reaching out and caressing Jess’s face.
Jess nodded. “I’m so different,” she said.
Kate nodded again. She was different. Different from the Jess who had gone to Spring Fling. Different from the girls around her. She’d been through a lot, and those things had changed her. Kate couldn’t imagine what it was like to balance out the before and after. Throughout the summer Jess had attended therapy three times a week. She’d gone back and forth on whether she wanted to finish high school or just take the GED when she turned seventeen. Her whole life—all the basic expectations—had changed. She’d had to become accustomed to the way the eyes of everyone in a room followed her when she entered, and the way they tried to hide the fact that they were whispering about her—retelling the bits and pieces they knew about what had happened. Jess hated being the center of attention, and yet people avoided her at the same time.
“Jess,” Kate said, wishing as she had a million times that she had just the right thing to say. “You’re an amazing girl, and you look beautiful. You’ll have your cell phone, so Dad’s only a phone call away. But remember how much fun you had at Spring Fling?”
Jess nodded, and her face relaxed a little bit. In July, Britney asked if Jess wanted to run with her in the evenings as she got ready for cross-country. Jess’s knee had healed by then, and she’d enjoyed it. When Britney started training with the cross-country team in August, Jess did too. In the two months since then, Jess had slimmed down some and made friends with the other members of the team, who seemed to help buffer her from all the curiosity sent her way. That kind of support had made all the difference. Jess decided to give high school another shot, and yet it still hadn’t been easy. Kids asked her questions constantly, some treated her like a celebrity, and others acted as if she had an infectious disease.
Jess had handled it all with as much grace as a sixteen-year-old girl could, but she still struggled to find her place amid everything that had happened—things that Kate and Brad still knew very little about. What they did know was bad enough, but Jess guarded her experience very closely, and Kate did not push. It hadn’t been easy to change the way she parented, but it had been working. That was enough.
As Kate searched for something else to say, Jess straightened, squared her shoulders, and lifted her chin. It was a trick her therapist had taught her, preparing to face the situation. And every time Kate saw it, her pride in her daughter soared. She thought back to her mother’s words, “I hope one day you can look at the woman Jess has become and be proud of her too.” Perhaps Jess was not a woman just yet, but Kate was very, very proud.
“I can do this,” Jess said with a smile and a nod.
“And we’re only a phone call away,” Kate reminded her as she stood.
“Right,” Jess agreed, taking a breath and standing. The dress they’d picked out was peach chiffon, with a full skirt and cap sleeves. It looked beautiful with Jess’s coloring. Kate stood, reached out, and gave her daughter a long hug, not wanting to let go.
“Now,” Kate said, pulling back. “Are you ready to face the Thompson masses?”
Jess skewed up her face in feigned consideration, then elaborately nodded her head as if she were being sent to the front lines. “I think so.”
Kate nodded and opened the door to the hallway outside the master bedroom, where she’d been helping Jess get ready.
“You look like a movie star!” Justin said, clapping his hands. The other kids oohed and aahed, especially Caitlyn, while Brad snapped pictures as fast as he could. Kate’s mom and her husband, Gary, now living in Ogden, were standing to the side and remarked to one another just how beautiful she looked.
“Okay, now let’s get one over by the fireplace,” he said. “Monique just called, wanting to know where her pictures are.”
Jess smiled and complied. The entire Weatherford family had flown to Salt Lake City two weeks after Jess’s homecoming—just two days after Drake Colton Shepard had been arrested by the Canadian Mounted Police in Edmonton, Canada. He had twelve current e-mail addresses numbered fifty-seven through sixty-nine, looking for his next victim. The Weatherfords and Thompsons had celebrated his capture together, but Kate wouldn’t have guessed how powerful the Weatherfords would become to Jess. Monique and Jess especially had developed a special friendship, which had continued with phone calls and e-mails ever since. A year ago, having another woman be that close to her daughter would have made Kate jealous and territorial, but she couldn’t deny that Monique filled an important role in Jess’s life. If that’s what Jess needed, then it didn’t matter where it came from—though Kate wondered if things would be different if she’d had a different kind of closeness before any of this had happened. She looked at her own mother, who caught her eye and smiled, reminding Kate that there was always hope between a mother and daughter.
Jess had recently talked about perhaps going to Ann Arbor for college, and the Weatherfords had offered to have her stay with them. The idea sounded horrible to Kate, who couldn’t imagine Jess moving a couple thousand miles away. But she had smiled and reminded herself that this was Jess’s life, not an appendage of her own. One thing Monique said over and over again was that it wasn’t how we handle our success in life as much as how we overcome our trials. That really proves who we are. Though that advice was intended for Jess, Kate found it great wisdom in regard to her own life as well.
A knock at the door caused everyone to pause, and Brad hurried to open it. Nick Tolson, a boy who ran with Jess on the cross-country team, stood at the threshold, trying not to look nervous. Brad shook Nick’s hand and invited him in. With all the kids and grandparents gathered together, the room was full.
“Let’s get a shot of the two of you,” Brad said eagerly.
“Dad!” Jess said under her breath and behind her smile.
Brad ignored her. “By the fireplace.”
They complied, and Brad took several shots of the two of them standing together while Kate sat down on a kitchen chair, knowing she needed to get back to bed soon.
That Jess was home at all was miraculous. That she had healed enough emotionally to go to the homecoming dance like other girls her age was further proof of God’s tender mercies.
“We need to go,” Jess said behind her teeth after the ninth picture.
“Okay,” Dad said; then he looked at her date. “Will you take a picture of us, Nick? One of her family?”
Kate stifled a laugh at the look on Jess’s face, but Jess didn’t argue, and they all piled around her while Brad showed Nick how to use the camera. Then Brad hurried to his place on the right side of Jess, with Marilyn standing beside him. Kate stood on the left next to her mom and Gary. When the kids had filled in every other inch, they all smiled.
“Okay,” Nick said, his nervousness wearing off a little bit. “Say . . . uh . . . families are forever.”
They all paused for a brief second, then each of them broke into a wide grin. Joy squeezed Kate’s shoulder.
“Families are forever!”
Nick snapped the picture and looked up. “Perfect.”
Author’s Notes
The Crimes Against Children Research Center did a study in 1999 based on 1,500 American teenagers aged eleven to seventeen who used the Internet on a regular basis. Regular basis was defined as at least once a month for six months. Statistics found that in a one-year period of time, one in four children were exposed to some type of pornographic imagery, while one in five were the victims of sexually driven comments and invitations. One in seventeen were threatened or harassed, and one in thirty-three were asked to meet someone in person. Only 25 percent of these children told a parent, and only a very small fraction of those reports were ever forwarded to the police or any other online agency. Perhaps the most disturbing portion of this study was
that most of the teenagers involved were not bothered by sexual content online or with being asked for personal information. Only one-third of the households with children surveyed had filtering programs on their computer.
It is true that many sexually directed comments come from other youth, even friends, but the fact remains that the Internet opens our homes to every other home with the Internet. As portrayed in this story, the Internet provides a forum in which many teenagers feel comfortable being themselves. It’s easy to believe the person on the other end is just like them and in need of friends.
So what can parents do to protect their children from Internet hazards? I believe there are three keys: education, supervision, and software.
Education. Rather than banning children from the Internet, teach them how to use it. We live in a technological age that is only becoming more advanced. To function in this society, our kids are expected to have familiarity with the computer and the Internet. Instead of cutting them off from the advantages of the Internet, make sure they understand that the Internet has both good and bad available, and just as with books, movies, TV, and friends, they need to be careful in the choices they make. Children should be warned to never give out personal information and to choose screen names that keep their gender, state of residence, and age unknown. Yet, even after teaching your children, don’t assume they would never break these rules. They are children, and they don’t understand the full spectrum of the situation they are in—that’s why they have parents (!)—which leads us to the second part of the plan of protection.
