by Meg Jackson
“Can’t Alicia and Becky take me?” I asked, gesturing to my friends, who were standing a little bit behind us. I couldn’t imagine what would happen to me without them; they were, really, the only things that were keeping me from having a full-on breakdown. Kevin nodded.
“Of course. But you’ll be talking to me at the station, okay? So don’t worry. We’re going to take care of everything,” he said. I was grateful, now, that he was there. I had always liked Kevin, and it was good to have one more person I could trust on my side. Not that the entire police force and, probably, the whole city wasn’t on my side; but it’s different when you know someone is fighting for you.
I almost couldn’t go into the room on my own. I stood outside the door, chewing my lip, ready to break into sobs any second, trying to find the words to say when I finally saw my father. How could I ever tell him just how sorry I was for not listening to him in the first place? He had been right; of course he had been right. Aren’t fathers always right?
Finally, I pushed the door open. The sobs that had been hiding came out to play, and I wailed when I saw him sitting up and looking at me, his face furrowed with concern.
“Daddy! I’m so sorry!” I cried, rushing to his side. I wanted to hug him, but when I saw the sling around his arm I worried about hurting him.
“Baby, Samantha, stop, it’s okay, I’m okay!”
“No, you’re not! You got shot and Mom got taken and it’s all my fault!”
“It’s not, baby, it’s not your fault. None of this is your fault, I promise,” my father said, reaching out to stroke my chin with the back of his hand. The contact stilled me almost instantly. “It’s not, baby, really.”
“But…but…” I said, sniffling.
“No buts. It’s not your fault. It’s not even that boy’s fault. They were wearing masks, Samantha, but I know he wasn’t there. It was that father. He kept asking for him…for Boon. But that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter, Sammy. I’m going to be fine, and we’re going to find your mother, and she’ll be fine too. I can leave here tomorrow, they said. And Mom will be home by then, in good hands, and it’ll all be okay. Just like a bad dream.”
I stared into my father’s eyes as he spoke, praying that I would see only the strong, confident man I’d grown to trust so much over the course of my life. But there was something else under the knowing façade he was putting up. He didn’t know any of that, and I could tell, just under the surface, that he had doubts about everything he was saying.
Well of course he has doubts, moron, his wife is currently missing, in the hands of a gang of violent bikers, I thought to myself, scolding myself for expecting my father to be brave when it was him, not me, that got shot in the arm.
“Have you spoken to the police yet?” he asked.
“No, not yet,” I said, my voice regaining some semblance of control. Talking to my father had made me feel worlds better, even if I knew he was just saying things he didn’t believe in order to make me stop crying.
“Go. Talk to them. Any information you can give them will do a lot more good than keeping me company,” he said, his voice turning stern. I knew that he wanted me to talk to the cops so they could find my mother quicker, but the thought of leaving him now was impossible.
“Daddy, please, just a few more minutes,” I said, silent tears brimming. If I’d thought seeing my father cry was bad, seeing him in that bed, with the sling around his arm, was a million times worse.
“Of course, baby,” he said, reaching out to cup my chin. His eyes softened. “I didn’t mean to rush you out.”
“I stole a car,” I suddenly blurted out. I still don’t know why I chose that particular time to come clean with that. Maybe it was just part of an overall purging process as I tried to deal with everything that had happened. I was amazed when Dad broke into a grin and chuckled slightly.
“Did you now?”
“Well, Boon did,” I said, my eyes on the ground.
“I don’t care. I mean, I do, and we’re going to talk about that, but if you had to steal a jet plane to get you safely away from that situation, I wouldn’t be mad,” he said. “I’m just so happy you’re safe.”
“Daddy, I’m so sorry. I thought he was worth it, but he’s not. He just…he just left! You were right,” I said, gaze still glued to the floor.
“Well, maybe I was right, maybe I wasn’t. It doesn’t matter now. But it’s not your fault, and you can’t think that it is. It’s not. And I mean…well, I’m sorry he hurt you, baby. You know I’d kill anyone who hurt you. But he didn’t…well, he’s still just a kid. He might seem old to you, but he’s just a kid to me. And he’s gonna regret leaving you until the day he dies.”
“I just…what are we going to do? What if something happens to Mom?” Even as I spoke the words, I felt panic creeping back into me.
“Nothing is going to happen to Mom,” Dad said, his gaze growing as stern as his voice. “Don’t you dare think that something is going to happen to her. I promise you, the whole damn force is out there looking for her. They’re gonna find her, Sammy, and they’re gonna bring her home in one piece.”
I nodded, not believing him but happy just to hear the words in his voice. For once, I was happy for him to be speaking so sternly to me. It was like he was commanding me to believe him, and I wanted to obey that command.
“But they’ll find her a lot quicker if they have your testimony to help them,” he added. “I’m going to be fine, Samantha. Go talk to my men. Tell them everything you know.”
I nodded again, reaching out to grab his hand.
“Okay, Daddy. I will. I promise,” I said. That, at least, would be an easy promise to keep. I looked down at him once more, feeling my heart ache. Then I turned quickly, knowing that if I stayed a little bit longer they would need seven men to carry me away. He’s safe. He’s alive and he’s going to be okay and he’s safe, I thought.
In that moment, even with everything else I didn’t know, even with my mother still missing, that one fact was enough. My father was safe.
Alicia, Becky, and Kevin were waiting for me as I let the door click shut behind me.
“Ready?” Kevin asked, tentative. I nodded, too choked up to speak. Alicia and Becky flanked me again as we left the hospital. We followed Kevin’s squad car to the station, and Alicia and Becky didn’t leave my side until the absolute last moment.
“Do you want us to wait for you?”
I shook my head no. It could be hours, and they weren’t exactly going to be allowed to hold my hand through the whole process.
“I’ll just call you later? Can I stay at one of your houses tonight?”
“Abso-fucking-lutely,” Alicia said, grabbing my hand. “Call us whenever. Even just to cry. We’ll come pick you up later, okay?” I nodded and let them both wrap me in a big hug, savoring the small moment of comfort. As they pulled away and walked out the door, I felt more alone than I’d ever felt in my life.
“Ready, Samantha?” Kevin’s voice came from behind me, softly, patient. I turned and nodded again. I was as ready as I’d ever be. He led me to a simple gray room with one desk in the middle; it was sterile, like the hospital had been, but much less bright. I was thankful for that. I didn’t want to feel like I was being interrogated.
The questions were both simple and complicated: where did you meet Boon, how did you grow close, what did he ever say about his father, what were his friends like, where did they take you in Vegas.
When asked to describe Tank and the two other men I’d met from the Cold Steel club, I realized that every mistake I’d made was coming back to haunt me. I’d been too drunk and high that night to remember what anyone looked like; if only I’d stayed sober! If only I hadn’t agreed to take that hit! I could tell them exactly who to look for.
They’d used imaging software to age the sketch they had on file for Tank, made ten years ago when he’d last been in Missoula. But since everyone had been wearing masks, and since changing your appearanc
e was really as easy as shaving, hopes were low that the sketch would yield any results. They’d already sent it out to all the hotels and businesses in the city, but nothing had come back.
Kevin was patient with me throughout the questioning, giving me plenty of time to think and to, sometimes, cry. I wanted to go faster, to make the whole process quicker so the police could get to my mother quicker, but I realized as I spoke that I wasn’t saying anything helpful. As the questioning drew to a close, Kevin reached into a drawer under the desk we were sitting at and pulled out my phone.
“We’ve already dusted this for prints, nothing but yours. We tried calling Boon on it earlier…”
“So that’s who was using my phone,” I said, stupidly.
“Yes ma’am,” Kevin said. “His phone seems to have been turned off, otherwise we’d be tracking it.”
“I thought you could track phones as long as the battery was still in them?”
“It depends on the phone. Regardless, we can’t track him,” Kevin said, frustration behind his words. Good, I thought, surprising myself. I was disappointed, heartbroken, by the way Boon had abandoned me, but I still cared about him enough to not want anything to happen to him.
“Well, he wouldn’t take you anywhere useful, anyway,” I said, not wanting to tell Kevin that Boon was on his way to Mexico.
“Maybe you could leave a message, Samantha. We talked to the DA. They’re willing to drop charges if he helps us,” Kevin said, leaning forward. I could tell he’d been waiting a while to tell me this, that he was excited by the possibility. I shook my head.
“He said he wouldn’t sell his dad out,” I said, my heart falling with each word as they reminded me of the way Boon and I had parted: bitterly, with regrets.
“Just try,” Kevin said, pushing the phone across the table towards me. I sighed and picked it up; it was dead. For some reason, I thought that was hilarious: some police department, can’t even charge a phone.
“It’s dead,” I said, pushing it back. Kevin looked down in surprise, then groaned.
“Christ,” he said, shoving his chair back and storming out of the room, shouting out into the hallway: “who the fuck let the phone die?”
After a few minutes, Kevin reappeared with a charger. Plugging it into the wall and connecting it to the phone, he handed it back to me. I powered it on, waiting for the familiar chime that meant the phone was ready to use.
Before I could even pull up my phonebook, I heard the chiming of my text message alarm. The first three texts were from Becky and Alicia, from before they’d picked me up. The last text, though, nearly made me drop the phone onto the table.
I was wrong. I was so wrong. Forgive me. I’m going to make this right, no matter what it takes.
It was from Boon, of course. I looked at the time stamp. He’d sent it at 10, and it was just around 11. I looked up at Kevin, eyes wide.
“What is it?” he said, standing up and leaning forward, eager.
“Boon texted me,” I said, showing him the phone. Kevin grabbed it from my hand, reading the text and fairly leaping out of the room.
“We got a text, someone get on the tracker, move it, people!”
I felt so out-of-the-loop. Obviously, Kevin was hoping that Boon hadn’t turned his phone off again. But sitting there, alone in that room, I felt like I was on the outside looking in on the mess. The minutes stretched on and on, each one feeling like an hour. It was too quiet in the room, too cold, too still. Finally, Kevin re-appeared, his face grim.
“Little shit turned his phone off again,” he said. “Last location we have for him is somewhere up near McCloud Ave.”
“Well, are there any hotels or stuff up there?” I asked, trying to remember if I’d ever been to that part of town.
“A few. We have calls into them,” Kevin said, shaking his head.
“What was the hotel that…last time…you know, the last time all this happened, what hotel was that?” I asked, the question appearing in my mind even as I spoke it aloud. Kevin shrugged.
“Well, it was the Indian Lodge Motel, and that’s up in that area, but we’ve already sent them the ID and it’s really unlikely that they’d go back to the same…”
“Is it? How unlikely is it? I mean, you said it’s close to where Boon last was,” I said, my general malaise and depression making way for frustration. It was the only lead they had, why wouldn’t they want to take it?
“Yeah, but…”
“Can’t we just check it out? Just go talk to the desk? I mean, maybe their fax machine is broken or something,” I said, pushing.
“We have patrols up in that neighborhood, I could…”
“No, can’t we just go? Kevin, please, I just…I need to try…I can’t just sit here!” My voice rose to a cry as I spoke, and I realized the truth behind my own words. I didn’t know if my idea was worth anything, and there really wasn’t any use in going to the motel ourselves if they already had people canvassing that area, but I didn’t want to sit in that room. And I didn’t want to sit in Alicia’s room, or Becky’s room. I wanted to do something, even if that something wound up being nothing.
Kevin studied me, his face sympathetic. He nodded and stood up.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said, stepping out of the room once more. I hated being left alone in that room. It seemed that something inside me was waking up: something angry, and motivated, and passionate. I wasn’t just going to sit in that room and wait. I got up and went into the hallway, looking in both directions for where Kevin might have gone. I heard a low conversation coming from a door on my left and tiptoed up to it.
“She just wants to do something, I say we take her for a ride. I mean, if anything happens, I’ll call for backup ASAP, but probably nothing will happen. But just for her peace of mind, you know? Let her think she’s helping, or whatever,” Kevin’s voice came. Condescending prick, I thought, surprising myself once more with the depths of my anger at that moment.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea. I mean, I could just send one of the units out, she never has to be in danger,” came another voice, presumably Kevin’s superior.
“Well, why would they go to the same place twice, really? I just think…well, we owe it to Sheriff to try and take care of his daughter.”
“And you think taking her to a likely hostage situation is taking care of her?”
“It’s better than keeping her in an interrogation room, or letting her just go home and probably wind up going there herself, anyway.”
There was a pause in the conversation, then a sigh.
“Okay, okay, fine. Take her. Quickly, though, in and out. And if anything seems off, don’t even pull in, just call for backup. I’ll let everyone out in that section know to be on the alert. There should be a team checking out that place in a half hour or so, anyway.”
“Thanks, boss. I just want the kid to feel better,” Kevin said, his voice growing nearer. He appeared around the corner of the doorway and nearly jumped a foot into the air when he saw me waiting.
“Shall we?” I said, turning on my heel. I don’t know exactly when I went from being a ragdoll who could barely hold her own head to this person who felt like she could climb Mt. Everest if it meant getting her mother back, but I knew I didn’t want that feeling to leave. I wanted to take advantage of it while I could.
The drive to the Indian Lodge Motel was about ten minutes, mostly spent in silence, listening to the crackle of the radio and the reports coming in from base and from other squad cars. I thought, along the way, about whether or not Boon was there, too. If he knew where his dad was staying and he’d been in this neighborhood when he sent the text…I could only hope. Or, not hope. I didn’t know what I wanted to be true. Well, I knew what I really wanted: I wanted for Boon to have talked his dad into surrender, for my mom to be sipping tea in the lobby by the time we got there.
But the reality, I knew, was much more complicated. What if Boon had agreed to leave with his father? What if Boon h
ad fought his dad? What if he didn’t really know where his dad was, and we were, in fact, no closer to answers than before? We pulled into the parking lot; it was almost deserted. The motel itself looked like it could be blown over with a single puff from the big bad wolf.
“Stay here,” Kevin said, unbuckling and opening his door.
“No way,” I said, fairly leaping out of the car and striding towards the door. I could tell Kevin was already regretting the fight he’d put up to take me there. He’d probably imagined he was taking me for a little cruise, that I’d just sit in the car and wait for him to come out empty-handed. Tough luck, Kev.
The night clerk was a bearded old man with a wheezing way of breathing. He smelled like lozenges. I didn’t care. If he was going to be able to help us, I’d consider him Jesus. Kevin approached behind me, pulling the police sketch from his pocket.
“Did you get a fax today looking for this guy?” I asked as he slid it onto the counter. The old man shook his head.
“Fax machine is broken,” he said, and I looked back at Kevin pointedly. The old man studied the picture for a few minutes. “Actually, yeah, he looks real familiar. I checked him and his buddies into room 127 a few hours ago. Maybe around 7 or 8.” He smiled, clearly thrilled to have a chance to help.
I can only explain my actions after that as the actions of someone gone crazy with grief. I mean, looking back, I really can’t tell you why I thought any of the things I did were good ideas. I guess I knew they weren’t, but I wasn’t really thinking of anything. I was like a wire coil, all tensed up, suddenly sprung. I looked at Kevin once, quickly, then bolted.
“Wait, Samantha, stop!” he called out, trying to grab me as I raced past him.
“No, no, fuck you! That’s my fucking mother in there!” I cried, running out the door. Kevin started after me, but I was already halfway around the motel, room numbers whizzing past. Finally, I arrived at 127; Kevin was hot on my heels as I began to bang on the door, crying out.
