by Jody Kihara
way. I told her Jasper had been taken, and described Pa’s
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truck and well as Revo’s car as best I could. Then the
reception went crackly.
“We’ll put out an APB on those vehicles,” she told
me, before the phone gave a blast of static so loud that I
had to pull it away from ear.
“What?” I asked.
This time I heard her: she cautioned us to stay
inside and keep the doors locked until the police arrived.
I wondered what she’d think if she saw me standing
on the windowsill on the outside of the cabin, perfectly
backlit by the bedroom light. Target. “Will do,” I told her,
and clicked the phone shut.
Dad helped me get back inside, and we both sank to
the floor, breathing heavily. After everything that had
happened that night, standing on the windowsill ready to
fall to my death was the one thing that had made me
physically shake. Or maybe it was the events of the past
days finally taking their toll. I looked at my arms and
hands: they were trembling.
“Thanks, Paul,” Dad gasped.
I nodded, unable, for a moment, to speak.
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Chapter 15
Nothing until now had felt as frustrating as waiting
for the police. We couldn’t do anything apart from pace the
cabin restlessly, and it seemed to be taking them forever to
get here from Stanton. It was only a fifteen minute drive,
maybe twenty in the dark, but it felt like an hour was
slowly ticking by. We didn’t bother staying away from the
windows ; Revo was no doubt driving off with Jasper, rather
than waiting in the woods with a gun. I didn’t think any of
them, redneck family included, would be stupid enough to
remain at their cabin knowing we’d have the cops after
them sooner or later. The longer the head start they had,
the easier it would be for them to get away. I pictured
Jasper in Revo’s car (assuming Revo and ‘Pa’ were each in
their own vehicles) and wondered, was Jasper crying,
distraught, ashamed? He should be, I thought, and a bitter
taste came to my mouth as I thought of his involvement in
the whole thing. We could have died!
Dad was clearly impatient too, because he kept
running his fingers through his hair and pacing in
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semicircles. Finally he turned to me and said, “I wish you’d
told me about it sooner.”
I felt myself flush with anger “How would that have
helped? We’d never have figured out that The Girl had
anything to do with Revo,” I snapped.
“Sorry, Paul.” He sat down, stood up, ran his fingers
through his hair again. “I should have known something
was up with Jasper. I guess he was acting moody, but I
didn’t see it, it just seemed so…”
“Normal,” I finished.
He sighed, and for a moment seemed to accept that
he couldn’t have done anything differently. This didn’t last
long, however, and after a few minutes he started rambling
on another self-guilt trip: “should have known… quieter
than usual… didn’t spend enough time with you two…”
I tried to tune it out as I paced the cabin in
frustration — Hurry up! I thought. What was taking the
cops so long? “Do you think there’s only one car?” I asked.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have told them to come out here,
because we need them to follow Revo! What if there’s only
one car and we’re taking it up because I said there was an
attempted murder, and I should have told them it’s the
kidnapping that’s important!”
“I’m sure they’ll send reinforcement from
somewhere else,” Dad said, but I could see he was worried,
too. How many cars would a middle-of-nowhere town like
Stanton have? Compared to how many possible directions
there were for Revo to head off in?
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Finally we heard a car engine, then saw by two
headlights sweeping down the drive. We were at the cabin
door before the police had even opened their car doors.
Two male cops, fully uniformed, got out the car and walked
towards us — too slowly for my liking. Dad ushered them
in.
First, they wanted to make sure we were okay, and
once we assured them that we were, they asked for the
whole story. All Dad cared about, however, was: how many
police were out looking for Revo’s car, had they found
Jasper yet, were they closing all the roads out of town, had
they notified all the neighboring towns? Would they close
those roads down too? How easy would it be for Revo to
get away, how hard would it be for them to catch him?
The conversation was getting nowhere with both
sides trying to talk about different things, so I stepped in.
“Can you please let us know how soon you’ll hear about
Revo and Jasper, and then we’ll answer everything?”
“If they find them, they’ll radio the station and then
the station will get in touch with us.” the older officer said.
He had a wide stomach and bristling mustache.
“Wouldn’t it be faster if we waited at the station?” I
asked.
“Yes,” Dad said, getting up from his chair, “and then
we can get to Jasper faster when they catch them.”
After a moment’s deliberation, the cops agreed. We
climbed into the back of their car, and they drove slowly
down the bumpy, winding dirt road. I wished they’d hurry it
up.
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“What will you do with Revo if you catch him?” I
asked them from the back seat.
“When,” Dad said firmly.
“Whoever finds him will bring him to the station for
questioning, which is why we need your statements first.”
This was the younger cop. Officer Herd, I think he’d said his
name was.
“And Jasper? They’ll bring him there too?”
“Yes, of course.”
I was glad we’d be at the station before them,
because Jasper would have a meltdown if he were dragged
to a cop station along with his deadbeat dad in cuffs.
Once we got onto the main road, it only took another
minute to get to the station, and I hoped Revo wasn’t
already there — I hated the thought of him telling them a
pack of lies before we’d given them the real story.
But he wasn’t, and there was still no word on
locating him and Jasper. The lady officer I’d spoken to on
my first visit to the police station — Officer Tully, she
introduced herself — was handling the phones and radios,
and she reassured Dad that the police in each of the four
surrounding towns were out searching too, and that all
neighboring motels had been notified in case Revo and
Jasper stopped for the night. I doubted Revo would stop,
though. Not till he
was in the next state.
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“But they could be been miles past those towns
already,” Dad said. “What about the next towns? Can they
notify the whole region?”
“Don’t worry, once an APB goes out, all the police
stations will get it,” she reassured him. “We’re doing
everything we can.”
Dad and I were both worried, though, and the
questioning that followed didn’t exactly help ease the
tension.
The police wanted to know about the kidnapping
first, especially about ‘Pa’ pointing the shotgun at Dad,
which meant the story came out backwards, and took
several tries to explain. Once we’d worked back to the
beginning, I was the one who told most of it, but it didn’t
help that Dad interjected here and there, and that the cops
listened to him more closely than me.
“Why didn’t you tell us about the girl?” they asked
me.
“I promised her I wouldn’t.” I was already feeling
defensive from them not believing my story the last time.
“Didn’t you think a kid running away from home was
a serious issue? Why didn’t you tell your dad?”
“I did!”
“But not till much later.”
“No, I mean, I did think it was serious. But that was
part of why I didn’t tell — I thought maybe she’d run away
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because she was being abused or something, and I didn’t
want to send her back to a dangerous situation.”
“You didn’t think the appropriate authorities would
look into the possibility of abuse?”
“Yes… well, I mean, I guess I didn’t at the time, but
she threatened to drown herself if I told anyone!”
They looked skeptical.
“I did try to find out who she was, and if she had run
away from home,” I pointed out. “And it’s not like I didn’t
come here to the station. And the police officer told me
she’d have heard for sure if there were any missing kids.
So then I figured it could have all be a prank. Which it
was,” I reminded them.
“But even if it was a prank, didn’t you think she
might have drowned if she’d tried to swim away from the
island, or suffer exposure or hypothermia?”
“Yes, that’s why I left her a blanket. And the
flashlight.” My explanations were starting to sound weak,
even to me, and everything was getting twisted to make
me come across like a liar. But they all knew my story was
true, otherwise Revo wouldn’t have run off with Jasper! I
shifted around in frustration.
Dad finally stepped in. “Look, we all know now that
Paul should have reported it sooner. But that’s not getting
us anywhere now.”
I gave him an indignant look. “You didn’t believe me
when I told you! You didn’t!”
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It took him a second to admit this was true. He
sighed. “I’m sorry, Paul, but the story was a bit…”
“You see?” I said. “I knew no one would believe me,
and everyone would think I was making it up or crazy,
because there was no missing girl!”
“Yes but you’d seen her and you knew she was real,
and therefore probably in danger, so you still should have
told someone,” the younger cop said, making me want to
jump up and shout my lungs out.
“This is pointless!” I burst out. “Look, they set up
this big hoax because they wanted me and Dad to have an
accident, or if an accident hadn’t happened, then Revo
might have taken it further and really hit us with the
motorboat sometime. I mean, he was after the will money,
and the only way you can get that is if someone dies! ”
“Yes, but we can’t prove that,” the older cop said.
“We don’t know what he hoped would happen, and you
can’t charge someone with what they might have done
next. I don’t know if we can even charge them on setting
up the hoax — there isn’t any real proof so far. It’ll all
depend on the statements of Revo and the other fellow.”
“Hale Daewood,” Officer Tully said, looking up from
her desk. “It’s in the report from when we ran the check on
him. He’s been in and out of jail a bunch of times.”
“You knew he’d been in jail and you didn’t tell us?” I
asked.
“No crime had been committed at that point,” she
said, but kindly, and I gave her a grateful look. So far she
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was the only one who was being nice to me. Still, that
meant the police hadn’t told me when they’d said they
would; how come no one was giving them a hard time for
withholding information?
“What I am concerned about is that this Daewood
fellow pointed a gun at you, and that Revo took Jasper him
against his will,” the older officer said.
“Uh,” I said, exchanging glances with Dad. We’d
maybe forgotten to mention that Jasper hadn’t exactly
gone against his will. Dad gave a brief shake of his head,
and I raised my eyebrows in surprise — so we were going
to keep quiet about that little part?
I guess he didn’t want to complicate things more, as
our allegations seemed pretty shaky already. Plus, Vanessa
was Jasper’s legal guardian, so it was probably illegal for
Revo to take Jasper anywhere without her permission, even
if Jasper said it was okay.
“Daewood’s jail terms were mostly for petty theft,
some fights, and one instance of carrying a concealed
firearm without a license,” Officer Tully added, reading from
her computer monitor.
I wondered again about the beginning of the whole
setup — had Revo come here scouting the place out, and
found that his friend happened to be here? Or had he
plotted the entire thing, including installing the neighbors in
the cabin next to ours?
“Greenville, Oklahoma, Montgomery,” Officer Tully
finished.
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I gave her a confused look.
“The prisons he was in.”
“Montgomery!” Dad burst out, looking ready to
explode.
“What, what?”
“Revo spent a few months in Montgomery.”
“So maybe that’s where they met!” I said.
“Or they already knew each other and were in for
something they’d pulled together.” Dad turned to Officer
Tully. “Can you find out for us?”
She started typing.
“That would help prove they did this together,
right?” I asked.
The older cop scratched his head. “Well, it would
lend some weight to the story, but it wouldn’t really prove
anything. You can’t charge someone for something they’ve
already served time for. We’ll just have to hope they’re
caught, and then wait for their statements.”
/>
“Unrelated charges, anyway,” Officer Tully said, and
stopped typing. “So maybe that was how they met. But
Officer Davis is right, it doesn’t prove anything.”
I was still itching with frustration, and Dad seemed
that way, too; he kept looking at his watch. “Surely if they
would have caught them by now, if they’re able to.”
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An uncomfortable silence went by. Then finally, the
desk radio clicked into life. We all jumped up as Officer
Tully took the call.
“Officer Tully,” she answered, and we waited. “You’re
sure? Where? Okay, we’ll be waiting.” She put the radio
down. “They’ve found them. Both parties — Revo and
Jasper, and Daewood and his kids.”
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Chapter 16
Revo came in snarling and straining like a Pitt bull,
and I almost jumped away from him before I realized his
hands were cuffed behind his back. This pit bull was
restrained by a ‘leash’, in the form of two burly police
officers at either side of him. Jasper followed behind them
all, bawling.
“You took my son!” Dad shouted, springing forward.
This time we all jumped up in a confused mess: Officers
Davis and Herd moved quickly to hold Dad back before he
could get to Revo.
“Step son,” I muttered in response to Dad’s
comment, regarding Jasper as he stood there blubbering
like a three-year-old.
Revo continued to thrash around, his anger was now
directed at Dad. “You always mess up everything! Always!”
he snarled. The two looked like they were going to burst
free from the cops holding them and tear at each other’s
throats.
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“You had no right to take him!” Dad yelled back.
“Now I am going to put a restraining order on you.”
“He’s my son!” Revo raged.
“You have no legal guardianship — you can’t move
him a foot without Vanessa’s permission, and you know it.”
“Stop it!” Officer Davis ordered, “Or I’ll put you both
in the cells.”
They stopped shouting, but both were clearly
seething. Now it was only Jasper’s wails echoing around the
