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“Jacob, what are you saying? Who took Vela home?” I was yelling into the phone when Grant threw open his passenger side door and was to me in seconds. He wrapped his arms around me and held me against his tall, strong frame.
“The man said he was her uncle Caleb.”
I pushed out of Grant’s embrace, panic lending me physical strength I didn’t normally possess. “That can’t be…no…Jake, no. They must have made a mistake! My brother Caleb died at birth with our mother. What the hell is going on? Where is our daughter?”
“She’s missing, Cass.”
Thank God Grant stayed close and immediately supported my body. Otherwise, I would’ve crumpled to a heap right there in the parking lot. He guided my collapsing figure into the vehicle and slid in beside me. I had a staticky awareness of someone else in the car with us, and the two were speaking in clipped, rushed sentences. My brain was shutting down to basic functions, though, and I couldn’t make sense of their conversation.
I couldn’t make sense of anything.
Terribly confused, I asked Grant, “What’s going on? What happened?” With every question I asked, two more sprouted in my mind. “Where are you taking me? Grant?” My head swam with a miasma of thought fragments. None lining up to make one solid idea I could make use of.
“Pia, sweetheart, try to calm down. I know that’s easier said than done right now,” my tall friend said.
“I’m so confused. I need to check my sugar, I think,” I mumbled while rubbing my forehead. Rummaging through my purse, I remembered, just like when I looked for my kit while at the hospital, I had moved it to my briefcase. My briefcase was in my car—in the parking lot we just peeled out of.
Wait…the hospital.
“Grant! Where are we going?” Just like that, the panic was back in full force. “Wren is back there in that emergency room. Alone!” My head spun like I was on the Mad Tea Party ride at Disney. I hated that damn ride every time I was on it.
“My testing supplies are in my briefcase in my car,” I explained while thumbing over my shoulder. “Back there at the hospital. We have to double back. And for the last time, Grant Twombley, where the hell are you taking me?” I asked at a volume much louder than appropriate for inside a car.
Immediately after that outburst, my mind careened out of control, and I had to close my eyes. My neck felt like a rusty hinge when I let the weight of my whole head loll back against the leather seat.
Whose car were we in? Grant didn’t drive, and Rio’s car was much smaller than this one. I peered around the downward curve of the driver’s seat to get a look at our escort.
It was Elijah. Okay, that made more sense. On to the where and why of my puzzle.
Grabbing his arm, I rushed out in one long breath, “Elijah, you have to make a U-turn here and go back to St. Thomas. I need my insulin and testing
supplies.”
“All right. On it. Please calm down, though. We’re going to find her. I swear if it’s the last thing I do, Pia. We will find her,” my friend behind the wheel vowed while swinging the car through the intersection and heading back in the opposite direction.
Then it all came flooding back. Like spark plugs to my brain’s engine, his promise reignited my mind. Adrenaline acted as the combustible fuel, and all the facts we knew started burning my imagination with made-up scenarios and horrifying images of my terrified little girl.
“No! Wait! Maybe we should just go. Go to the school. I’ll get what I need from home, or Wren can get it for me,” I said without thinking.
“Cassiopeia.” It was Grant who called my name in a formidably dark timbre.
While I appreciated his attempt to head off my hysterics, the man was about fifteen seconds too late.
“Grant, I’m so scared. They have my baby. Someone has my child.” I whimpered the last few words while tears, uninvited and unwelcomed, tracked down my cheeks in hot, persistent rivulets.
Elijah pulled alongside my vehicle, and I hurried to grab my belongings from the back. I stood up from bending to snatch something that had rolled out of my bag, and my gaze landed on Vela’s booster seat.
The seat she sat in without argument because she knew the rule. The seat she sat in because her safety had always been my number-one priority. I sank to my knees on the blacktopped parking lot and fractured. I was on the opposite side from where the guys pulled in, so I wasn’t sure how long I huddled there, sobbing and holding myself together with my arms banded around my midsection.
I could not lose that child. I couldn’t live a day without her in it. From the moment I found out she existed, she was my everything.
“Please no, no, no. Please no, no, no.” I just kept rocking back and forth, pebbles digging into my knees and probably tearing my hose, but it just didn’t matter. If I didn’t have my sweet, beautiful, innocent star in my sky,,
nothing else mattered.
Grant came from the back of the car and Elijah rounded from the front. They converged on me and lifted me to my feet. Grant bent down and took my briefcase in hand while Elijah ducked low enough to put us at equal eye level.
“Dub, listen to me. You have to hold it together right now. You are one of the strongest people I’ve ever known. You’ve seen plenty of shit in your life. I know you have it in you to pull yourself together. I need you to. Your daughter needs you to.”
I was nodding along with his lecture by the end. I absorbed his supportive comments and felt his physical strength where he held me. In his eyes I saw his understanding of our joint history and of the experiences Bas and I had endured alone. Most importantly, and I believe what finally compelled me to move my feet in the direction of his idling car, was the familial love we had for each other and the knowledge that these two men would tear whoever did this limb from limb. When we found the person responsible for all this, they were as good as dead.
Car doors slammed. Seat belts buckled. Engine noises reverberated through the car. And then…deafening silence. I couldn’t be sure any of us were even breathing, judging by the potent quiet that loomed between us.
More tears started, and I swiped my cheeks with my fingertips. However, these tears were not ones of anguish now. No, these little drops of fire were backed by rage. White-hot rage coursed through my entire body that someone had messed with my daughter and me, no doubt to settle some score with my brother.
I attempted speech, but my voice was small and hollow. “Is this…”
The men didn’t even turn in my direction, so I cleared my throat and put an exhalation behind my words.
“Is this because of Bas?” I tossed into the air for anyone to answer. “Are these the same people who have been hassling everyone?”
Hassling? What a dumb euphemism for Grant’s abduction and Hannah’s near gang rape. My open palm hit my forehead with a loud smack, and finally both guys jolted in their seats and then turned to look at me.
“That was so insensitive of me, Grant. Forgive me, please. I’m not firing on all cylinders here.” Hopefully, he heard the deep regret in my voice. Or at least took the weird tone of it as deep regret. I’d count either as a win.
“Pia, you don’t have to apologize. I still can’t say the words kidnapped or abducted
without psyching myself out about it.” He stretched his long arm back over the seat to give my offered one a reassuring squeeze.
Elijah spoke up then. “There’s no point speculating what we’re dealing with until we get to the school and hear all the facts.”
I asked, “Where is Sebastian? Do you know? I think he has to be told.”
“He’s probably already at the Benning Academy if traffic wasn’t bad,” Grant answered after consulting the shiny watch on his wrist. “When Jake called the office first, thinking you’d still be there, he told Bas what was going on. We came to you, and Bas went to the school.”
I started rummaging through my purse while he finished his comment and could not locate my cell phone. In a panic, I turned the whole bag upside down and let all the contents tumble out on the back seat beside me.
“Can you call Rio and see if there’s any news on Wren? Please.”
“You bet. Whatever you need, Pia. We’re going to get through this,” my friend said while already holding his phone to his ear.
I unlocked my phone and saw all the notifications making a gray wall down the entire screen. I didn’t have time to scroll through them and see if any were from Jake or Bas. Instead, I stabbed the icon for the dialed calls log and selected my brother’s name from the list.
His phone rang four or five times before his disembodied voice came over the line, instructing me to leave a message.
“Why am I going to voicemail?” I asked no one specifically. As that frustration simmered, the car slowed significantly and then completely stopped.
I knew what I would see out the windshield even before I leaned to peer through the middle of the two front seats. We were in the beginning hour of the evening commute, and true to form, the damn freeway was at a crawling pace.
“Do you think the surface streets are a better call?” Elijah asked via the rearview mirror.
“It’s a toss-up.” I shrugged. “I think the exit is only a few miles ahead. At least we’re moving.”
“I think that frontage road intersects the street you exit onto. I’m getting off,” Elijah decided and simultaneously put on his indicator and looked over
his right shoulder to check his blind spot.
If you wanted to make it as a driving Angelino, you had to be aggressive at times. Clearly my friend was comfortable behind the wheel, and in no time, we were off the sluggish freeway and cruising parallel to it on a frontage road.
“Good call, brother,” Grant said after ending his call and offering a fist to bump to our driver. He and Elijah went through about six steps to the handshake, both grinning and giving a firm nod at its completion.
At least they found something to smile about. The air in the car was stifling, and I was grateful anxiety didn’t hold me in its cruel grasp like I’d seen many of the women of this posse battle.
Patience was another trait I didn’t possess much of. I wasn’t as short fused as my brother, but the Shark gene pool was definitely low on the stuff. I already saw the same shortcoming in my little one too.
My little one.
I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t do this thing called life without her in it. She gave the word life real meaning the very first moment she was laid in my arms. That day I had vowed to protect her always. And now, I’d let her down.
How could this have happened? Heads were going to roll the minute I walked into that school. Well, if anyone had a head left if Sebastian had been there this whole time.
“Elijah, please, can you go faster? My baby…” My voice cracked and a sob leaked out.
“I’m trying, baby, I swear I am. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry is on the road right now. Apparently all going where we want to be going.”
“Pia, listen, Rio had great news about Wren,” Grant offered, and I appreciated his attempt to distract me.
“What did she say? How is she? Did they tell her about Vela? Maybe they should wait so she doesn’t freak out, you know? I don’t know… She’ll be so upset with me when she finds out I didn’t tell her right away. I wish this damn merry-go-round would stop. I just want to get off.” Not wanting to look at either of the guys after all that, I dropped my face into my palms and tried to calm down.
Half turned in his seat, Grant reached me with his long arm and pulled my hand from my face. “Hey, hey, come on, kiddo. Hold it together. We’re
almost there, okay?”
I nodded and sniffled. Damn tears kept coming at will, and the one stray napkin in my handbag was already balled in my fist and used to capacity. Grant handed me his handkerchief, and I finally made eye contact with my kind, generous friend.
“Thank you.” I sniffed again. “Both of you, thank you for everything.” I dabbed my cheeks and then my nose.
“We wouldn’t be anywhere else right now,” Grant declared. “We will find her. And whoever’s really dumb idea this was will pay.”
Again, I just nodded. I didn’t want to approve of more violence, but the fierce part of my spirit did. Finally, I croaked, “Tell me about Wren, please.”
“Rio said she’s awake and alert and doesn’t seem to have anything more than some bumps and bruises. And as far as telling her what’s going on here, I think maybe waiting until we actually know the facts might be the best plan. Of course, you do what you need to do. You know her better.”
“I agree with Twombley,” Elijah added as he finally made the turn to head up the hill into Calabasas. “If this all ends up being some sort of misunderstanding and she went home with a friend or something, there’s no use getting Wren all worked up when she needs to be concentrating on herself.”
About six minutes later, we were pulling into the parking lot of the Benning Academy for Early Learning. I had my seat belt unfastened and hand on the door handle before he had the car situated in a visitor’s parking spot.
Three abreast, we burst through the front doors and took a hard left and beelined to the main office. Bas or Jake must have been tracking us, because Jacob appeared in the empty hallway. I broke away from the guys at a run and barreled into his arms.
I wanted to ask a hundred questions, but my voice was strangled by emotion. I buried my face in his neck and absorbed his warm strength. Holding me with one arm, Jake shook hands with Grant and Elijah when they joined us.
“Guys, I can’t thank you enough for getting her here safely,” my daughter’s father said to the pair.
Elijah started with the questions I should’ve been asking. “What do we know? Have there been any updates? Are the cops here?”
Okay, so my questions would’ve been more along the lines of “What are we going to do?” “What will I do without her?” and “How can this be happening?” Queries that couldn’t be answered reasonably, but my heart was leading the crusade at the moment, and those were its demands.
“Let’s go inside, and we can all talk together. My darling,” he said to me directly, “did you check your sugar? You doing okay?”
I snaked my arms around his waist and smiled up at him. It was a pithy version of the usual expression, but I felt lucky to have gotten that much out. “Yes, I took care of everything on the drive. My God, it seemed like we were going to sit in traffic all night.”
He was such an incredible partner. Still thinking about me when we were in such a desperate situation.
Not depending on other people had always been a major component to my life’s law and order. In that moment, however, I couldn’t deny how good it felt knowing I wasn’t facing this terrifying experience alone.
The moment I got my arms around her, I could feel her entire body tremble. First, I checked in with her and made sure she had tested her blood sugar. In my head, that seemed like a better reason for the quaking than the actual cause.
I knew she’d be upset. God, that word seemed so inadequate for how this feeling of impotence jangled through my whole system. Honestly, I didn’t feel like I could support both of us in this situation, but I would do it anyway. She would see I could be a confident guide she could follow when things were difficult. Even though our history screamed she didn’t believe a word of that.
It was standing room only inside the principal’s office. Pia broke away from my embrace and lunged for her brother. Most of the people in the room averted their eyes as though they were intruding on a private moment. The anguish coming from that embrace was palpable in the stuffy air, and I would have given anything to relieve her of the despair.
My woman stepped back from Sebastian and asked to no one and everyone, “Where are the authorities? How did we make it here before them?”
I wasn’t sure how she’d feel about the information she was about to learn, so I reached for her hand to reassure her. Or me, maybe.
“Your brother and I agreed to not get the police involved at this time,” I announced. Maybe throwing Shark under the bus to cushion my fall was cowardly, but I knew Pia trusted him with her life. It seemed like presenting a united front on the issue would be our best plan of attack. ...
