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I texted him repeatedly from the locker room. I called him over and over, but it just rang and went to voicemail. I left him voicemails even though I knew he hated voicemails. I told him to call me the second he got them, because I was freaking out and needed to know he was ok.
I yanked my uniform off and threw on a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt at my locker without a shower. I left the locker room without even taking the time to let Jeff know what was up. The celebration I was skipping out on was a big one, but I didn’t care. It meant absolutely nothing to me. I saw Jeff looking at me from across the room, and he looked concerned, but I didn’t have time. I knew I looked utterly terrified, because I was.
Jeff texted me on my trek across campus. Hey is everything ok?
I didn’t want to just ignore him, so I messaged him back, never slowing my pace. No. It’s Wally. And I haven’t heard from Jamie since he left work. He should have been home a long time ago.
I marched right to Jamie’s dorm, still trying to call him all the way there. When I saw that his bike wasn’t in its usual spot was when I really panicked, because I could no longer pretend that he’d forgotten his phone at work somehow, or that it had just died.
I ran up the stairs, dialing the number to Club Adonis instead. Maybe he’d just stayed there because Wally had scared him out of leaving. Maybe he was dancing again after all, and that’s why he wasn’t answering. I calmed myself enough with that thought that I didn’t start crying in his hallway, pushing away the knowledge that he would have let me know if he was going to do that. Maybe he’d forgotten. Maybe the texts hadn’t gone through.
I pounded on the door to his room, and it was opened by his roommate Mark, who was in his pajamas with a bag of chips in his hand. “’Sup, bro?”
Someone picked up the phone at the club as I asked Mark, “Is Jamie here?”
I heard the person on the phone say, “Club Adonis.”
Mark shook his head, looking confused. “No, I haven’t seen him since about five.”
I just nodded and took off back toward the stairs, leaving Mark watching after me curiously. “Hey,” I said into the phone, “This is Caden.” I didn’t catch who answered, but it didn’t matter. They all knew who I was by then. “Is Jamie still there? He texted me earlier and I just got the texts because my game went into overtime. He said he was leaving, but he isn’t back yet, and he isn’t answering his phone.” I was trying to stave off the panic, but I could hear it in my own voice. I prayed for the answer I wanted to hear.
The person on the other end of the line hesitated for a second, but I was acutely aware of it. “Caden…” It was Ray, the bartender. I recognized his voice. “Jamie left like an hour ago. Tristan watched him leave. He said he was going back to campus.”
“Fuck!” I cried, ignoring the stares of the people walking by me. “What the hell happened tonight?” God, I wished I’d been there instead of the hockey game that had seemed like everything in the world. I realized just how little it meant to me in the grand scheme of things.
Ray hesitated again, but I could hear the concern in his voice when he said, “Weird Wally showed up. He managed to corner Jamie in the back hall by the dressing room. We don’t know how he got back there, and none of us realized he had until another dancer yelled. Tristan found them back there, Wally with Jamie pinned up against the wall. Tristan yanked him away, but Wally fought back. He’s stronger than he looks, man. He gave Tristan a run for his money. We called the cops, but Wally took off before they got here. The cop talked to Jamie and Peyton, the dancer that yelled. He talked to us, too, and Jamie told him he wanted another restraining order. He said he was going to file for one in the morning. He was so shaken up he just wanted to go home. He left before his last set. Tristan went out first and checked the parking lot and next door, then stood out by the street to watch Jamie leave. He said he tried to get Jamie to wait for you to call him back, but Jamie just wanted to get back to campus.”
That was about the point in time that my panic absolutely erupted. It took Jamie less than twenty minutes to get back to campus. Even if he had gone the speed limit, taken a detour, and got pulled over on the way home, he would have already been back. He never would have stopped somewhere without letting me know, because he knew I’d be worried about those texts.
I called the cops and explained the situation in a rush. They told me he wasn’t a missing person if he’d only been missing for an hour, and that there was nothing they could do. They would not listen to my reasoning. So I texted Jeff, Caitlin, Jesse, and Amber. I was on the verge of losing it completely and I didn’t know what to do. My friends showed up for me, just like they always did, just like I knew they would.
Jeff left the celebration. Caitlin left whatever dude she was out with, and Jesse left his boyfriend’s party. Amber left her studying for the huge test she had the next Monday. We all converged in mine and Jesse’s room. Somehow, despite my panic, I managed to get the whole story out, from the texts in the locker room to the fact that Jamie wasn’t back yet and what Ray had told me. My friends agreed with me that it was time to panic, and we all took off, marching our way right into the police station.
I was armed with texts from Jamie, screenshots of the messages from Wally, and the club’s phone number. I was not going to let it rest. I knew Jamie was in trouble, and we could not afford to wait until he was legally classified as a missing person. Something needed to be done right then. I wasn’t about to rest until they listened.
The universe finally shined some grace on me, because shortly after we arrived the same cop who’d been called to Club Adonis earlier that night heard me freaking out and heard me say Jamie’s name. He was a detective who’d been called out on the regular call, since the college town wasn’t huge, but the cops were busy. He was the detective who ended up taking over the case.
He approached our weary group and told the cop who was trying to get us to calm down that he’d take it from there. Then he looked at me, the one who was the most visibly upset, and told me to slow down and tell him what was going on. I started my story over, showing him the texts Jamie had sent me earlier in the evening, explaining that he’d had much more than enough time to get home, and relaying what Club Adonis had told me. I explained that Wally had been a problem in the past and showed him some of the messages he’d sent Jamie, who’d sent them to me. The detective listened intently, without interrupting me or telling me it was too soon to say Jamie was missing.
He hadn’t been able to do much at the club, but he’d taken statements from everyone involved. He’d suggested Jamie file a permanent restraining order so they could ban Wally from the club, and he could be arrested for harassing Jamie in any location. The detective was going to try to get Wally for assault, but there wasn’t much of a case since he was gone when the detective arrived. He told me he’d been concerned for Jamie’s safety when he was at the club, because Wally seemed like a classic stalker to him, and one that was growing impatient. He didn’t really help my mental state when he told me Jamie had been pretty scared. Because Jamie was stoic. He didn’t let people see a lot of the things he felt, and if that detective knew he was scared, then he was terrified.
I tried to get that across to the detective, tried to explain that Jamie didn’t let things show, that I knew something bad had happened, and it could not wait twenty-four hours for Jamie to be declared a missing person. I was literally crying in the police station, and my words were probably partially incoherent. I’d attracted a lot of attention by then, and my friends were trying to put their hands on me to calm me. I shrugged them off. I couldn’t calm down. Jamie was missing.
The detective took pity on me and motioned me to follow him. He took me to an empty office and told me to wait in one of the chairs while he went and got a cup of water from a nearby water cooler. He brought me the water and shut the door behind him as he told me to drink and tried to keep me from hyperventilating. “Listen, son, I hear you. I hear what you’re telling me, ok? I need you to take a breath, so you don’t end up in the hospital because you passed out and hit your head. I believe you, alright?” I begrudgingly nodded and took a couple of deep breaths with him. “Good,” he said, “Ok, can you tell me your relationship to the missing person?”
I looked up at him. I could tell he already knew, because honestly, I was pretty sure everyone in the police station did. It was probably important for him to be certain, though, to understand how well I knew him and to be sure I wouldn’t just make something like that up. I hadn’t said it out loud to a whole lot of people, but I answered him without hesitation. “He’s my boyfriend.”
He gave me hope then, both in Jamie’s rescue and in the human race. “It’s ok, son, it’s going to be ok. Just keep breathing for me. We’re going to find him. Everything is going to be ok.” He gave me a pat on the back, and I nodded, trying to believe him.
They did look. They put out an APB for Jamie, with photos of him and Wally, and all the patrol officers were keeping an eye out even though he hadn’t officially been classified as a missing person. The detective went back to Club Adonis to get statements and try to trace Jamie’s steps from there. But it wasn’t ok. Because what they found was Jamie’s bike, abandoned on a back road with more damage than it should have had from just a lowsider crash. Jamie wasn’t there. The police searched up and down the road to make sure he hadn’t tried to walk somewhere and collapsed. But though there was blood on the ground, it was only found near the bike. There was no trail, and there was no sign of Jamie anywhere.
They finally concluded from the evidence and the damage to the bike that Wally had followed Jamie from some point, hit the bike from the side with his vehicle, and caused him to wreck. Jamie had been injured and weakened, and Wally had managed to take him in whatever vehicle he’d hit the bike with.
A search warrant was issued since there was enough evidence to suspect him, and the police went to his apartment. Wally wasn’t there, but his car was, with no signs of damage. The warrant allowed them to break in with force, and that’s where they found all the evidence they needed. A room that was nothing more than a shrine to Jamie Bryant. An infatuation that was beyond the point of making him a suspect. An obsession that was quite obviously strong enough to make him do the worst.
In the following days, they started combing the area, looking for Jamie or any sign he’d been in the places they searched. The missing signs went up everywhere. The faces of Wally and Jamie appeared all over the news. The police warned Wally was likely armed and dangerous. People were instructed to call the police upon sight of him.
Jamie was officially a missing person, one classified as being in extreme danger. I saw his picture nearly everywhere I looked. I’d have given anything to see the smile in that photo again. Anything. My own life even, if he could just be ok.
