At the half, Jennie sent the boys off with money for drinks.
“They seem to be rather nice.” Jennie looked over at the girls.
“Did you hear that line?” Alexis exclaimed. “Beautiful name, beautiful girl.” She mimicked Kenny’s voice, and all three of them laughed. “He does seem to be nice though.”
“How about Billy,” Jennie asked Christa.
She shrugged. “He’s okay. Kind of dumb though. He doesn’t even know the quarterback’s name.”
***
The boys returned and Jennie sipped her drink as she watched the players warming up for the next half. That is strange, she thought. Even I know the quarterback’s name. Her mother knew it too, and neither of them really followed football. She glanced at Billy. Probably here just to pick up a girl. She shook her head. He was going to be disappointed.
The game resumed and they cheered the Red team on to victory. As it ended she checked the stands to make sure they were not forgetting anything, and Jennie heard three women who had been sitting near them discussing prospects for the fall season.
“National championship if we can avoid injuries,” one said.
The second agreed. “No doubt.”
“How about the defense? It has come a long way since Si Bateman arrived.”
Jennie smiled.
“Just hope we can hold on to him,” the first woman said. “I’ve heard he’s had head coaching offers.”
“No question. He’s only been here a couple of seasons, and he won’t leave at this point in the year. A good season, though, and he can write his ticket.”
Si had received offers. If they only knew…
Kenny and Billy were still with them when they reached the gate and Jennie turned to them. “Well, boys, it has been nice seeing you, but we need to go.” It was a signal for them to leave, but neither boy moved.
“Thank you. We’ve enjoyed it,” Kenny said.
They all stood for a moment without speaking. Then, Jennie placed a hand on each girl’s shoulder and guided them through the gate. As they stepped into the parking lot, the crowd seemed to expand. Several gates were open and as people left they seemed to stop walking, and a large crowd milled about just outside of the stadium. Jennie was jostled from one side and her hands slipped from the girls’ shoulders. Two men stood in her path, talking, and she stepped around them. She took two more steps before realizing that she was alone, surrounded by strangers.
“Alexis! Christa!” Her shouts were drowned out by the excited voices around her. Someone bumped her from behind. She stumbled, but a hand reached out and caught her. As she regained her footing, she found Jeff beside her, holding her arm.
“Hello, Jennie.”
She pushed him away. “Alexis! Christa!” She screamed their names over and over as she struggled to break through the wall of people who surrounded her. Jeff caught her arm again.
“What’s wrong, Jennie?”
“Alexis and Christa. They’ve disappeared. They were beside me as we left the stadium. They’re lost. I’ve got to find them.” She looked around wildly, calling their names.
“Calm down, Jennie. They’re here. It’s a lot of people. Let’s get out of the crowd. Maybe we can see them.”
Jennie decided that Jeff was right. She certainly could see nothing from where she stood, so she allowed him to take her arm and he half-guided, half-pulled her to the opposite side of the lot from where she had seen the girls go. It took several minutes to maneuver through the crunch of people. Jennie stopped and turned to search for the girls every few feet, calling their names as loudly as she could. Finally, they reached the steps to the student union.
***
Alexis and Christa left the stadium, walking slowly because of the crowd. Jennie was behind them, her hands on their shoulders, but as they reached the parking lot, they were jostled from all sides. Jennie stepped past them, to clear a path, Alexis thought, but when two men in front of her suddenly stopped walking and began to argue with each other, she stepped around them, and Alexis lost sight of her.
Suddenly, Kenny cried out above all of the noise. “Ow,” he screamed. “My knee, my knee.”
Alexis spun around, startled, and saw him. He appeared to have fallen on the pavement, and she reached out to help him up. “Are you all right? I didn’t know you were still with us. Give me your hand.”
Kenny slowly reached out to her, grimacing. He allowed Alexis to help him to stand, and he draped his arm around her shoulder. “Thanks. I tripped,” he groaned. “You’re a life saver.”
“Where is Jennie? Do you see Jennie?” Christa stood on tiptoe.
“No, I don’t. She must have walked on. Let’s hurry.” Alexis took a step, but Kenny whimpered.
“Not so fast. My…my ankle. I twisted it.”
“Alexis, we have to find her.”
“I can’t go any faster.” Kenny placed his weight on Alexis’s shoulder. “Ow, it hurts to walk.”
Billy suggested that they get out of the crowd, to one side, saying that maybe they could see better if they did. He mentioned that if Kenny walked a little, maybe the pain would go away. “That happened to me when I twisted my ankle once,” he said.
“This way.” Kenny pointed to their left, away from the student union. As they crept through the crowd, he leaned on Alexis for support and his leg seemed to improve. “I’m going to be all right,” he said as they reached the edge of the crowd.
They stopped, and Alexis looked behind them. People continued to pour out of the stadium and no one seemed to be leaving. Instead of thinning, the throng was growing in size.
“How will we find her?” Christa looked around, an anxious expression on her face. She whipped out her cell phone and punched in Jennie’s number.
Billy started to grab the phone, but Kenny held up his hand. “Let her call her mother. Find out where she is.”
“There is no answer. There’s too much noise.” Christa was almost crying. “She can’t hear it ring.”
“Where did you guys park?” Kenny asked.
“Near the coliseum.”
“Great. We’ll walk you to your car. If your mom is not waiting for you, she’ll have to come eventually. You can call her in a few minutes after everyone leaves, and tell her where you are.”
Alexis nodded. “Makes sense. We certainly can’t see her in this mob. Are you sure you don’t mind?”
“Not a bit,” Kenny grinned. “I never pass on a chance to spend time with a pretty girl…you never know when you might get rewarded for your efforts.”
Alexis laughed. “Right.”
Christa put her phone back into her pocket.
“Let’s go this way,” Kenny said. Rather than leading them across the parking lot, he quickly directed them along a road that took them behind the stadium.
“This is not the way we came,” Alexis protested.
“I’ll bet not,” Kenny replied. “Not many people know this route. It’s a shortcut.”
Chapter Nine
“Thank you so much.” Emma smiled at the woman who held the door for her as she maneuvered her four large shopping bags through the mall’s main entrance and paused on the sidewalk, trying to spot her car.
A blue BMW pulled to the curb and the valet hopped out, handing its key to the woman who had held the door. Paying for valet parking at a mall seemed excessive to Emma. However, as she watched the woman tip the valet, she thought about the bags in her hands and decided that today, if she’d thought ahead…
She finally spotted her sliver Lexus and trudged across the lot, dodging an SUV that sped past.
“Idiot,” she said to herself. “With all that I’m carrying, I’m three feet wide. It’s not as if you didn’t see me.” She placed the bags on the pavement next to her car, popped the trunk, and then loaded her purchases inside. As she closed the trunk, she heard her ring tone.
“Hmm.” She looked at the screen. A Georgia number. No name. “Hello?”
“Emma, this is
Jennie. Have you heard from the girls?”
“No, is something wrong?”
“They’re missing. I can’t find them.”
“What do you mean, missing? Where are you?”
“At the stadium. The game ended and we walked out. I turned around and they were gone.”
Emma could hear the panic in her voice. “Have you called the police?”
“Yes…Here comes an officer. Let me—”
The line went dead.
Emma shook her head. The woman certainly had a lot to learn about teenagers. The girls were probably standing off to one side talking to boys. Alexis, anyway. Her boyfriend, Robbie, was in Athens for the game and they had likely spotted each other.
She laughed as she opened the car’s door. If she had seen Robbie, Alexis might as well be on another planet. Normally so serious and goal-directed, she morphed into a different person when Robbie appeared.
Still, she understood why Jennie would be concerned. They were in an unfamiliar place and, she guessed, there were a ton of people. As she settled into her seat, Emma punched Alexis’s number on speed dial. “Let’s see if I can find her.”
***
“Officer, my daughters are missing.” Jennie was gasping for breath and beginning to cry. “We left the stadium. I turned around, they were gone.”
“I’m sure they’re all right, ma’am. We have a large crowd and it’s easy to get separated.” He opened a notebook. “Tell me their names. What do they look like?”
Jennie gave their names and descriptions.
“And you’re their mother, correct?”
“Yes, I am. Please find them.”
He turned to Jeff. “You’re the father?”
“Uh…no. No.” The surprise showed on Jeff’s face. “I…I’m just a friend. I saw Jennie and…stopped to talk to her.”
The officer turned away and spoke briefly into his radio. “We’ll look out for them. Probably stopped to talk to friends. You know how kids are.”
“But, no, they’re not from here. They wouldn’t know—”
“He’s right,” Jeff interrupted. “Probably off flirting with those two boys who sat with you. I know that Kenny…”
Jennie stood on tiptoe, scanning the crowd. People were finally starting to move off and she could see better than she could earlier. Suddenly, Jeff’s words sank in and she flipped around, hitting him in the chest with both hands. “How do you know we sat with two boys? How do you know one was named Kenny?” She looked over his shoulder at the stadium. “What are you doing here anyway? You care squat about football.”
Jeff’s eyes grew large. “I…uh…I…”
“What did you do with my daughters?” Jennie screamed. People turned to look and the officer turned back in their direction.
She hit Jeff again. “Tell me where they are.”
“Sir, do you know anything about her daughters?”
“I…I…was just supposed to distract you,” he said to Jennie. “I don’t know where Alexis and Christa are, or where they are going. Askins told me—”
“You’ve kidnapped my daughters? My daddy is involved in this?” She began to pummel Jeff.
He held up his hands to defend himself. “Jennie, stop. Jennie…Officer, help me.”
“If anything happens to them, I swear I’ll kill you. I’ll…”
Another officer arrived and they separated Jennie and Jeff and took them to an office inside the stadium.
***
“That’s my telephone.” The ring tone signaled a call from Emma and Alexis pulled the phone from her pocket. “Hi, Emma.”
“Alexis, I had a call from Jennie. She says that she lost you. Where are you?”
“We lost her in the crowd at the stadium. We’re on our way back to the car.”
“She’s still at the stadium, I think. She sounded like she’s having a panic attack. Can you call and tell her where you are?”
“We need to get moving,” Kenny said.
“Who is that? Is it Robbie? He’s supposed to be there.”
“No, it’s Kenny. We ran into him and his friend Billy at the game. They are walking us to the car.”
“Put the phone way, Alexis. Talk later. We need to go.”
“Alexis, is he telling you what to do? Who is this guy?”
“I said that we need to go.” Kenny snatched the phone from Alexis’s hand and turned it off. “You call her when you get to the car.”
“Give me my cell phone.” She glared at Kenny. “Now.”
He held it out to her.
“I barely know you and you’re giving me orders? I don’t think so. Go home. We’ll be fine. I know the way from here.”
“We said we’d walk you to your car and we will.” Kenny reached toward her.
“Touch me and I’ll scream loud enough to be heard in Atlanta.”
“Okay. Okay.” He raised his hands in innocence. “I’ll walk beside you.” He made a show of taking two steps to the other side of the walkway, then he looked back at Alexis and smiled. She didn’t laugh, but simply turned and began to walk toward their car, Christa beside her, the boys behind.
***
“Thanks, Emma.” Jennie had been pacing the floor in the waiting area of the police station, fighting back tears, turning every few minutes to glare through a window at Jeff who was being questioned by a second officer. “Emma found them.”
“And Emma is…”
“She’s my former husband’s fiancée. She reached Alexis.” She sighed. “I never thought to call…Anyway, they’re with the two boys who sat with us at the game. The two who are working with him.” She pointed at Jeff.
“She was talking to Alexis and was disconnected. She thinks someone turned the phone off, since her next call went directly to voicemail. Christa’s cell is turned on though. Emma has an app, ‘Find a Friend.’ It shows her a map with Christa’s location. She says that they are moving down Sanford Drive and that they’re almost to Soule Street.”
“Near Soule Hall. I’ll make a call.”
A minute later, the officer returned. “Officer Butler is in front of Snelling Hall. He sees your daughters, a block away, coming toward him, the boys walking behind. He’ll intercept them and bring them here.”
Jennie sighed in relief. “Hold on, Emma.” She was embarrassed that Emma had thought to call Alexis when she had not, that Emma, not she, had been able to locate them. I’ll never measure up, she thought.
***
“There’s a policeman ahead,” Alexis whispered to Christa. “He’ll help us find Jennie.”
As she spoke, a blue van jerked to a stop beside them and its door rolled open. Alexis screamed when she saw Askins in the driver’s seat. Kenny grabbed her around the waist, lifted her off her feet, and sprang into the van. As they entered, he pushed Alexis into the back seat and fell on top of her, holding her down. Billy did the same to Christa, landing in the middle seat.
Alexis slapped Kenny across the face and shoved him away. She crawled across him, moving toward the door. As she started to stand, Billy grasped the handle and slammed it shut.
“Help us,” she screamed, waving her hands wildly. “They’re kidnap—”
Kenny grabbed her shoulders and yanked her back onto the seat and slapped her across the face. “Shut up,” he roared.
Alexis drew back her fist and punched his nose. Blood spurted. He squealed and he fell away from her. She turned and pounded on the window, screaming. “Help us. Help us.”
As people turned to stare, the policeman dashed toward the car, pulling his pistol from its holster. He pointed at Askins. “You. Stop.”
Askins had turned to watch the girls being loaded into the van. When the officer shouted, he whirled around, slammed the van into gear, and pushed the pedal to the floor. The van sprang forward, hurtling toward the officer, tires squealing. Askins leaned on the horn and people scattered, clearing a path.
“Stop!” The officer fired a shot before rolling out of the way. Reachi
ng the corner, Askins made a sharp left turn, then a quick right He sped down the road, barely keeping the van upright as he wheeled around a traffic circle. He took another right and left the campus behind.
***
Emma was still on the line.
“Jennie, they’re moving fast now. Must be in a car. Do you know…?”
“Hold on…” Jennie turned to the officer, who was talking on his radio. “What happened?”
He turned to the other officer. “A blue van pulled up and the boys threw the girls inside. The van took off, almost hit Butler.”
“I’m on it.” He picked up a telephone and walked into another room.
“What is it?” Jennie grabbed the officer’s shoulder and shook him. “What happened to my daughters?”
“The boys threw the girls in a van and took off. An older man was driving and…”
Jennie barreled into the small room where Jeff was sitting, his head down. “Did you hear that?”
Jeff nodded as he pushed his chair way from her.
“Who’s taken my children?” She slammed her hand on the table, her telephone slipping out and crashing to the floor. “Who has them?”
“It’s your father’s plan. I told you. He’s the old man driving the van.”
Jennie leaned over the table, her face close to his. “Where are they going? Where are they taking my girls?” She was so angry. Her voice sounded muted, like the growl of a dog ready to attack.
“I don’t know,” he mumbled.
“Where?” she screamed.
“I don’t know.” Jeff sat straight up, his hands held out in a show of innocence. “Askins said that the less I knew, the better. He said something about a cabin and a pond…that’s all I know. That’s all I heard.” He looked down. “I wasn’t supposed to hear that.”
“And what do you get out of this?”
Jeff hesitated. “You,” he whispered.
“Me?”
He nodded. “Your father promised to turn his head if I wanted to…to resume our relationship.”
Those Children Are Ours Page 20
