Finding Jake

by Bryan Reardon

  “Let’s go inside before they say we can’t,” I whisper to her.

  The officer leads us into our own home. I half-expect that they have ransacked the place, but everything looks eerily as it did that morning, except for the men and women wandering through our rooms, taking pictures and speaking in hushed tones. Attuned to the acoustics, I locate the center of activity, Jake’s room upstairs. Instantly, I remember something.

  “Where’s Laney?” I blurt out.

  “She’s at the Bennetts’.”

  I guess I assumed Rachel would take care of her. She cannot see all this. But I hadn’t even asked to be sure my daughter is okay. Rachel does not seem to notice this, though.

  “You can go up to your room, but I have to come up with you,” the officer says.

  I nod but Rachel lunges up the stairs as if attempting to lose him. I let him follow her up and I bring up the rear. Our room is empty of activity and appears undisturbed. As I look at our bed, my current read still resting on the nightstand, my phone vibrates as it receives a text. I yank it out, my hope spiking.

  What can you tell us about your son’s involvement in the shooting?

  Shocked, I check the ID but do not recognize it. I back into a corner and call the number, glancing around to see if the police notice (although not really sure why I do that). A man answers, his voice echoing as if he answered the phone in a basement.

  “Simon Connolly. May I record this call?”

  “What? Absolutely not! Who is this?”

  “I’m Michael, author of Blog You Later. Can you tell me anything about your son’s—”

  I hang up. Not a second later, another text hits my phone. This one announces itself as the local news affiliate and requests an interview. I jam my phone in my pocket. It vibrates once more as I stare at my bed again. Something about the sound triggers a memory. Blood rushes to my head as I lunge forward, remembering the note I found that morning.

  It lies on the carpet peeking out from under the bed. I pause, amazed that the police have not seen it. With a quick glance, I notice that the officer’s attention remains on my wife. I kneel and scoop it up. As I stand, I unfold the paper and see sprawling lines of writing in Jake’s hand. The top line reads:

  THAT’S MESSED UP

  I only have time to read that much. I quickly crunch the paper in my hand and jam it in my front pocket. My nerves tingle, sure that if the police see the paper it will be taken as evidence. I grab a carry-on my wife keeps stowed under the bed and focus on throwing underwear and socks into the bag, trying not to look at anything or anyone.

  “What?” I hear my wife snap. “You’re going to follow me into the bathroom?”

  A door slams. My thoughts trip and stumble. I am packing to leave my house, which is in the process of being searched because the police think my son shot thirteen kids today.

  Outside, Detective Rose finds us before we step down off the stoop. I take him in for the first time. A man in his fifties with military-cropped hair, either very short or gray at the temples, he wears a rumpled tan suit and brown Clark’s shoes. His fingers are thick and scaly. I can’t look away as he twirls a pen.

  Seeing him triggers my need to act once again. I am being shuffled forward by circumstance. What I need to be doing is searching for Jake.

  “I’m going to look for my son.”

  I move to step past him. He puts a hand up, stopping me. I pause.

  “Would you mind if we sat down? I have a few things I want to go over with you.”

  I ignore his request. “Have you found out anything yet?”

  Rachel does not react. It is almost as if the life, or at least the fight, drained out of her in the bathroom. She walks like the soulless as she follows Rose to the same café chairs we sat at earlier. The detective offers us the seats and he stands, flipping open a notebook. I remain standing as well.

  “At this time, we are unsure of the whereabouts of your son.” He is choosing his words carefully. “Was he alone when he drove to school?”

  Rachel does not react. I am surprised.

  “No. He drove our daughter this morning.”

  The detective writes something down.

  “What? Do you know something?” I ask, annoyed.

  “He was marked absent by his prime-time teacher,” Rose answers. “Your daughter did tell one of our detectives that he dropped her off.”

  My anger could register on the Richter scale. “When did you talk to Laney?”

  Rose’s eyes squint. Suddenly, I am sure he is suspicious, not just of Jake, but of me. I realize now why Rachel has remained silent. We are suspects.

  “I sent an officer over to the Bennett residence to ask her a few questions.”

  “Did you read her her rights?” I snap, without thinking. “Did she have a lawyer present?” I need to regain control.

  The detective raises a hand. He looks to Rachel for help, but gets none. She is staring at Karen’s house now, at least that’s what it looks like. I feel my grip on the situation all but vanish.

  “So you decided to question my fifteen-year-old daughter without telling me?!”

  “I understand that you’re under a lot of stress right now, Mr. Connolly. We are doing everything we can to locate the whereabouts of your son.”

  The word “whereabouts,” used for the second time, cuts through me and I want to lash out. Just then, Rachel touches me lightly on the outside of my hand. I look at her but she is still staring off into space. Her touch, however, soothes my reaction, at least to Detective Rose.

  “If you need to talk to Laney again, please make sure you let me know first,” I say, calmly.

  “I understand,” Rose says.

  “Look, I’m going to look for my son. Someone has to.”

  “It’s best if you get your family somewhere safe. We’re doing everything we can and will call you once we hear anything. I promise.”

  I shake my head. “I need to look for him.”

  “You can’t, Mr. Connolly. The school is on lockdown. No one in or out. I’m sorry.”

  “But he might be somewhere else.”

  “We are following every lead. You have to trust us. Any interference could hinder us finding Jake.”

  This is the first time Rose uses my son’s name. Strangely, it calms me. I agree to take the family to the hotel and get them settled. After that, I’m not sure.

  “One other thing,” the detective says. “Was your son friends with Doug Martin-Klein?”

  Parked outside the Bennetts’, I reach over to open my door.

  “No,” Rachel says.

  I look at her. My mind remains in a dark haze. “What?”

  “I’ll go up.”

  Rachel gets out before I can protest. I watch her walk slowly along the walk to the Bennetts’ front door. I see her strength in each step. I often feel she is the strong one in the couple. I roar and posture, but she’s the business end of it all. That is, until someone needs protecting.

  The note! The thought pops from out of nowhere. I fish it out of my pocket but look up in time to see Laney rush out of the Bennetts’ house. She crashes into her mother, who holds her tightly for a moment. It looks as if Rachel attempts to whisk her back to the car, but Tairyn appears. A hand still in my pocket, I pause, trying to listen. I hear muffled, unintelligible words as I watch my wife’s body language. She acts as a human shield, guarding her daughter from some invisible threat. I glance at Tairyn and notice what I take as a vapid frown, empty empathy.

  The exchange lasts no more than two minutes but time weighs on my already-frayed nerves. I decide I will lower my window to hear what is being said just as Rachel turns and escorts my daughter back to the car. They move like apparitions, shades of my family. Rachel helps Laney into the backseat and sits down beside me. I pause, but she doesn’t make eye contact.

  “Drive,” she whispers.

  “I . . .”

  When she finally turns, I see that all color has drained from her face.
<
br />   “What happened?” I whisper, but I have the sense to take my foot off the brake and roll away from the Bennetts’ house. “What did she say?”

  “Nothing she actually meant,” my wife says.

  We drive to the Marriott downtown in silence. Wilmington is a commuter city. As we head in, all we see are people dressed for work. When we reach the hotel, it is more of the same.

  I hold Laney’s hand as we walk into the lobby. Not one step in, the giant television screen on the far wall assaults us. There, bigger than life, darker than the devil, appears Doug Martin-Klein’s high school yearbook photo.

  Rachel reacts first. She veers off, taking Laney in tow, and disappears into the women’s room by the lobby’s Starbucks. I am frozen in place, my very organs weighing me down as if they have all turned to concrete.

  The television is muted, so Doug’s picture is accompanied by the soft crooning of Alanis Morissette. The juxtaposition is more ironic than any of the lyrics of the song. I want to turn the volume up on the television. I need to hear what they are saying. At the same time, I need to get Laney and Rachel somewhere safe, so I peel off and approach check-in. Rachel appears as if from out of nowhere.

  “We should get two adjoining rooms.”

  I consider discussing this decision, but think better of it.

  “Where’s Laney?”

  “I’m right here, Dad,” she says from beside her mother.

  I blink. Somehow, the angle, or something, made it so I couldn’t see her. But there she is. Her face looks drawn and her skin pale. Her eyes are ringed in black and red.

  “Two adjoining rooms, please,” I say.

  When I have the keys, we walk to the elevators. Rachel leans into me.

  “I’ll take Laney to one room. You get the television on in the other. We need to know what’s going on.”

  “We need to do something to find Jake,” I protest.

  I know I cannot just sit still, no matter what I told the detective. Rachel looks me in the eye when she speaks.

  “I know. But do this for me first, so I know Laney’s okay. Then go.”

  I nod, amazed at how well she understands.

  Martin-Klein has been identified as at least one of the gunmen in today’s tragic school shooting.

  I hear this on national news. The affect remains as severe. I turn the channel to the local news. I recognize the reporter. We spoke once at a political fund-raiser three years before. Now, she stands outside a familiar house, one at which I had dropped Jake off more times than I would have liked.

  What kind of kid was Doug?

  My family needs me but all I want to do is go to that house, break down the door, force them to tell me what they know. Instead, I listen. The reporter speaks to a middle-aged woman in a black fleece vest and tan Uggs. I do not recognize her, although she looks my age. I’m half paying attention to her, because the reporter’s use of the past tense jars me.

  He was very quiet.

  There is something predatory about the women, both the reporter and the woman to whom she speaks. Maybe I am the only person who sees it. The reporter leans forward, her mouth slightly open. I imagine that I can hear her breathing. She nods along with every statement, as if she knows.

  The woman, probably the mother of some kid I know, has eyes wide open. She turns away from the reporter when she speaks, addressing the camera, all of us. She knows better. She saw this coming, and no one listened. Now is her moment.

  The parents were quiet, too. Never really took part in the parties here, or the yard sales. Nothing, really. I never really spoke to them.

  She uses the past tense about Doug’s parents, too. My blood runs like shards of old, dead stone. His parents are not deceased, the tense usage is far more insidious; what their son has done is, in fact, a parent’s death sentence.

  Although many of the names of the victims are being withheld at this time, awaiting notification of the families, three names have been released. Amanda George, fifteen years old; Kandice Moore, seventeen years old . . .

  I don’t hear the third name. My horror latches on to Kandice Moore. My eyes close and I see her brownish hair pulled back into a tight bun, elfish wisps bouncing before her right eye. Big green eyes and a roundish face. Short, with an infectious smile. She had been Jake’s date to homecoming. Now, she is dead.

  That is not possible. It simply is not. Kandice Moore cannot be gone. An innocent little girl standing tiptoed upon the threshold of her life. No. Denial slams shut like the bars of a prison, pushing in on my soul, crushing.

  I take out my phone and dial Jake’s number again. It goes directly to voice mail.

  “Jake.” I do my best to keep my voice strong. “Please come home. It will be okay. I promise. Just come home. We can handle this. Please, buddy. Come back.”

  My entire body quivers as I end the call. Rachel’s mother would say someone walked over my grave. Something about that thought sickens me. My mind slips to the possibilities, all the dreams I held inside, the decades of watching my son’s life blossom. They parade in backward order, phantom grandkids, a mirage wedding ceremony, graduation from a college that was never determined. I am left wondering if my son has yet to even experience his first kiss. All dreams now, fading visages slowly engulfed by darkness.

  CHAPTER 9

  JAKE: AGE EIGHT

  Jake sat in the backseat, his face blocked by the front of a book—Football’s Top 10 Lists. I stopped the car at the curb and I watched him through the rearview mirror, amazed by how big he had gotten. A thought occurred to me that I looked at a real person, not a kid or a baby.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Huh?”

  Jake put down his book, looking at me through his unruly, dark bangs. His hair jutted and speared in random order atop his head. He’d brushed it; I’d watched, but it didn’t look that way. His face had changed as well. Sharp angles replaced soft rounded cuteness. Even the clothes he wore carried more weight, the Seattle Seahawks’ logos replacing made-up mottos like “Shooting to Win” or “All-star Kid.”

  “You okay?” I repeated.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “I mean, if you don’t want to go . . .”

  “To the party?”

  We sat in front of the home of a kid in his class, Doug Martin-Klein. Other than the one day Jake came home saying he’d been nice to the boy, I hadn’t heard mention of Doug since. In fact, I’d forgotten all about him, focusing on a handful of kids Jake spent time with at school, mostly playing football during recess.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  Honestly, I felt slightly uncomfortable. I did not know Doug’s parents at all. Neither attended any of the near-weekly birthday parties I’d taken Jake to in the last few years.

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  Jake looked perplexed. I smiled.

  “Right?”

  Together, Jake and I walked up to the door. He carried a perfectly wrapped (by Rachel) Nerf football in front of him like myrrh. I rang the bell. A very tall man in thick-framed glasses and a short-sleeved button-down answered. His bushy dark eyebrows did not move a millimeter as he spoke.

  “Come in, come in.”

  He opened the door and held it. Jake walked through. I stepped to follow and the door jerked a little, as if he meant to close it.

  “Hi, I’m Simon Connolly, Jake’s dad.”

  “Nice to make your acquaintance. I am Doug’s father, Dr. Francis Martin-Klein.”

  A boy Jake’s age poked his head around the corner. His slatelike eyes, a little wide set for his narrow face, remained still as he smiled at my son. Slight of build, he swam in the maroon-and-orange-striped shirt he wore, the sleeves of which hung down to his knuckles. He had on dark, nonbranded sneakers and clutched a Ripley’s coffee table book under his arm.

  “Hello, Jake.”

  “Hey, Doug.”

  “Come on.”

  Jake followed Doug up a flight of stairs, I assumed to the kid’s bedroom. I found it odd, co
nsidering this was a party. I looked at Dr. Francis Martin-Klein, who watched me as if he watched a couch or a chest of drawers.

  “Um, are we early? I thought I got the time right, but I’m a mess.”

  The doctor nodded. “Right on time.”

  He made no welcoming gestures, no nod toward the kitchen, no sweep of the arm. I cleared my throat. Considering my own burgeoning introversion, I never knew if the awkwardness came from me or from others.

  Shifting my weight from one foot to the other, I noticed Doug’s mother. She peeked around the corner from the kitchen. When the doctor turned to look at her, she vanished.

  I cleared my throat. “Are other parents waiting around, or should I pick him up?”

  I really hoped he would say I should stay. I had not grown accustomed to leaving Jake places unless I was familiar with the parents. He spent most of his time at one of two houses, both close friends of his.

  “Okay,” the doctor said, this time smiling.

  I still did not move. Nor did he. I heard Jake laughing upstairs.

  “We’ll see you in two hours,” he said.

  I took a step back. Something in his tone or his choice of words hinted that leaving had been my idea. My head spun as I opened the door and walked out. When I turned to say good-bye, Dr. Martin-Klein was nowhere in sight.

  Jake and Doug were squatted in the front yard as I drove toward the house. Something in the grass transfixed Jake, while Doug busied himself with an obvious focus upon something I could not see. As the car slowed, Jake looked up and saw me. With a wave, he turned and said something to Doug. Doug looked up without much reaction and watched as Jake ran to the car. My son jumped into the back and buckled his belt. An instant later, he held the book in front of his face again, a perfectly explainable déjà vu moment.