AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"Sir," came Officer Tony's voice after a moment, "We've received a tip as to the victim's current location and have officers en route now. Before they get there and things become… complicated, can you please tell us where you've been this morning?"
Alex froze in his tracks next to a display of home goods.
Jakob glanced back to find out what the holdup could possibly be, only to see the kid's face had gone white as a sheet.
"I — "
"What's the matter?" Jakob hissed at him, eyeing the rideshare app.Six minutes.
"I think — Ithinkmaybe my Dad's put a tracker on me? On my — " Alex looked around himself wildly, his eyes wide as he desperately patted his pockets before lifting up his well-worn backpack, covered in a plethora of patches and pins.
Five minutes.
Alex dropped to his knees on the department store tiles, frantically digging through his bag. Hastily he threw a battered pair of cleats into the shopping bag holding his new clothes, and a series of small clear plastic boxes. In the background, Bing Crosby crooned a very unwantedI'll Be Home For Christmasin complete ignorance of the irony.
"Sure," came Ethan's voice over the phone. His tone was filled with a false geniality that felt decidedly at odds with the distinctly uneasy sensation coiling tight and bitter in Jakob's gut.
Too rough, too frantic; one of the little boxes Alex was throwing into the shopping bag overshot its mark. It hit the ground with a sharpcrackthat made Jakob flinch, its contents spilling, scattering, skidding across the tiles.
Four minutes.
"I ran some errands, had breakfast, and then a friend called me asking for a ride," Ethan listed off with a sigh, sounding as if he had just endured the most boring morning possible in the entire history of the world. "Dropped them off and then came straight here. Wouldn't know the first thing about a kidnapping, sorry."
"This friend… a student of yours?"Officer Tony asked.
"Another adult," Ethan hedged. "Is one of my students in trouble, officers?"
"I got it," Jakob said quickly, wincing as he leaned down to pick up the brightly painted tiny figures from the floor.
He handed them carefully to Alex, who threw them far less gently into the shopping bag; hastily ripping as many of the pins and patches as he could from the backpack and throwing them in, too.
Three minutes.
With a resounding clang, Alex threw the now-battered backpack into the trash at the exit doors. His shoulders bowed, his face suspiciously wet; he looked like a man awaiting his turn at the gallows.
Grimacing, Jakob clutched the phone even tighter to his ear; not saying anything as Alex turned away, swiping his sleeve roughly across his cheeks.
Fuck, but he felt so useless here. It didn’t matter that he knew, logically, that hewasdoing something. It didn’t erase this feeling of wanting to do more.
One step at a time,Jakob’s physical therapist had told him.Even the small ones are important in the long run.
Jakob sighed, checking the rideshare app again.
One minute.
"Look,Sir— " came a feminine voice over the phone. And though its owner was clearly attempting to adopt a tone that was probably going for 'let's all be reasonable here, and work on this together', it was just as clearly so sanitized and conditioned by training seminar after seminar that it came off closer to a tactic usually plied by used car sales folk. The end result was about exactly how you would expect to hear an alley cat to sound; one trying to blend in with the mice, but unable to fully hide their twitching tail and sharp teeth.
"— There's a missing kid out there," that officer was saying. "His family's worried sick. The kid's probably scared half to death. Our records have you listed as a teacher, right? I'm sure you know how dangerous the world can be, how much trouble kids get into in a situation like this. Just like I'm sure you want to make sure this kid gets back home with their family, goes to sleep safe and sound in their own bed, right?"
"Of course, I wish I could help you, I do. But like I told you, I don’t know a thing about any missing kid," came Ethan's easy enough sounding reply, though Jakob could recognize from experience the note of anxiety woven through it now. "‘Fraid I can't tell you what I don't know, can I?"
As Jakob and Alex stepped out into the too-bright sunlight outside, he spotted the rideshare's towncar weaving through all the pedestrians walking through the truly massive parking lot surrounding the mall.
"Sir, we'd like you to please come down to the station with us to answer some more questions," Officer Tony tried again.
"How about I call my lawyer; see if she thinks it's a good idea, yeah?" Ethan mused. "I’m obviously alway happy to assist the police any way I can, provided my council’s available. 'Course, she bills me a bit too much iffn’ I'm not actually being charged with anything. But seeing as you gents are the ones eager to ask me all these questions, I’m sure you’d be footing her tab, right?"
"Sir, if you could please —"
