CHAPTER 15
1525 Words
CHAPTER 15
“Do you know these men?” Kennedy had a hundred questions and probably less than a minute to ask them all.
“No.” Jodie sniffed again.
Kennedy didn’t realize she had been holding her breath until she let out the next torrent of queries. “Are you hurt? Did they make you do anything you didn’t want to do? Did they ... did they force ...” She couldn’t finish the sentence.
Jodie shook her head, and relief radiated out of Kennedy’s core all the way to her fingertips, warming her whole body.
The older man stomped up the stairs. “Don’t let them out of your sight,” he called down.
Dustin didn’t look over at Kennedy and Jodie. “I know.”
Kennedy watched the older one pass out of view. Was he going to get the steamer, then? Jodie’s breathing was a little quieter, and Kennedy hoped he wouldn’t change his mind. She held Jodie for several minutes, keeping her eye on Dustin, who stood at the bottom of the stairs scowling.
She ran her hands through the girl’s hair. “How are you feeling?”
“Thirsty.” Jodie was quieter now and hiccupping.
Kennedy caught Dustin’s eye. “I think she might be dehydrated.”
He stared at Jodie for a few silent seconds. “I have some water bottles upstairs,” he finally mumbled. “I’ll get one when Vinny gets back.”
Kennedy sucked in her breath. “What about the bathroom?” She tried not to wince when she remembered the taste of the sulfur water from the tap. “Could she get a drink there?”
“Whatever,” Dustin huffed.
“Do you think you can stand by yourself?” Kennedy asked. She needed a chance to talk to Jodie privately. She stood up and then paused. Would Dustin come over and stop her? After a moment of waiting to see if he would protest, she helped Jodie to her feet, and they shuffled together to the bathroom.
“Do you have any idea who these guys are?” Kennedy whispered once she shut the door. “Even a guess?”
“Uh-uh.” Jodie’s wide eyes blinked in the flickering light from the bulb.
“Are you having a little easier time breathing, at least?”
Jodie scrunched up her face. “I just ...” Her shoulders heaved with another choppy breath. “I just want my dad.”
Kennedy didn’t want to think about Wayne Abernathy and what his role might be in this whole scenario. “I’m sure you do.” She should try to get more information. She should keep on asking Jodie questions until eventually the pieces fell into place. But she couldn’t. Not when the little indent of Jodie’s neck quivered each time she tried to inhale.
Kennedy rubbed Jodie’s back. “Can you try to drink a little water?”
“I want my dad.” Jodie took a noisy gasp in, and Kennedy paused to see if she would start hyperventilating again.
What could she say to keep her from panicking? There had to be some sort of encouragement, some sort of comfort she could offer. “You go to St. Margaret’s, right?”
Jodie nodded.
“Well, you know how Pastor Carl and your Sunday school teachers are always talking about giving your worries to God?”
“Yeah.” The response was appropriate, but Jodie didn’t sound at all convinced.
“It’s a good idea. He’s here with us, you know.” Kennedy wondered how long they had before Dustin ran out of patience. “The Lord’s watching us right now. And I think he’s going to help us get out of this.” There was no real faith behind that last statement, but Jodie’s body relaxed a little. “Do you know any Bible verses?” Kennedy asked.
“Psalm 23.” Jodie wrinkled her nose when Kennedy turned on the water.
“Psalm 23’s a good one.” Kennedy did her best to infuse her tone with encouragement while Jodie cupped her hands and took a small drink. “Do you want to say it together?”
Jodie took a slow breath in and kept her face scrunched up after she swallowed the water from the sink. “The Lord is my ...”
“That’s enough.”
Jodie and Kennedy both jumped when Dustin banged on the door. Kennedy wasn’t about to see how far his generosity ran. She stepped out of the bathroom, grateful to see he wasn’t wielding his gun. “We were just finishing up.”
He grunted in response.
Kennedy led Jodie back and didn’t flinch when Dustin cuffed her left hand back to the metal hook that stuck out of the wall. He frowned at Jodie, and Kennedy wondered if he would cuff her, too. Would that start off another panic attack?
Instead, he went back to the wall by the stairs and spent the rest of the time before Vinny returned fiddling at the tool table and glancing at the stairs every so often. Kennedy’s mind spun in multiple directions at once. What she really needed was more time to talk to Jodie about Wayne Abernathy, about his campaign, about any enemies he had made. She had read enough political thrillers and watched enough action movies with her dad to know a desperate candidate could do about anything, even stoop to kidnapping. But why had they grabbed Kennedy, too?
Her brain raced ahead, whizzing and gyrating. Puzzle pieces arranged themselves up in perfect rows faster than she had time to connect them all. A hot shower, that’s what she needed. A hot shower, some tea, and a notebook to jot down all her questions. Right now, she felt she could fill a whole composition book with them.
“There weren’t no face steamers there.” The voice pierced the silence and made Kennedy wince. Vinny glowered down from the top of the stairs, his face set into an imposing scowl.
Jodie’s tiny body quivered as he stomped down the stairs. Every step seemed to take twice as long as it should.
“It will be all right,” Kennedy whispered, wondering if Jodie could guess how terrified she was, too.
At the couch, Vinny crossed his arms and scrutinized Jodie. “She looks better.” Kennedy couldn’t tell if Vinny was making a simple observation or if he had decided Jodie’s condition was no longer serious.
Kennedy stared past his ear and clenched her sweat-drenched palms. “Well, that’s the funny thing with asthma. Sometimes it gets better all by itself, and sometimes it gets so bad you’ll end up in the hospital.” She wondered if her roommate Willow would be impressed with her improv performance. Whatever happened, she couldn’t let them take Jodie back upstairs alone. They had to stay together. Are you listening, God?
Vinny’s phone rang, and he stomped off to the far wall to answer it. Jodie breathed in deeply. “I don’t really have asthma.”
“I didn’t think so.” Kennedy spoke out of the corner of her mouth. “But if they think you need more help, like you’re sick or something, they might let us stay together longer.”
Jodie nodded and her hand crept toward Kennedy’s.
“They’re probably not going to hurt us.” Kennedy hoped her voice sounded more confident than she felt.
When Vinny got off the phone, he jerked his head, and Dustin joined him for another conference out of earshot.
Kennedy waited a minute until the men were absorbed in their hushed whispers. “When did you get here?”
“Just this morning.” Jodie wiped her nose with her palm. Kennedy thought she had made a mistake in asking. Would Jodie start hyperventilating again? But she needed answers. She had to strain her ears to hear what Jodie said next. “I went to my uncle Anthony’s to babysit. He was going to be out late, so he wanted me to stay overnight.”
Revulsion bubbled up Kennedy’s throat. “Do you spend the night with your uncle very often?”
Jodie shrugged. “Only since my aunt died. Sometimes he’s out late and needs help with Charlie.”
Kennedy focused her gaze straight ahead and waited until the swell of suspicion and disgust settled back down in her gut. “So does your uncle know you’re here?”
“No.” Jodie’s eyes grew wide. “They came about an hour after he left. And I don’t know what they did to Charlie.” Jodie buried her face in her hands. “They might have hurt him.”
Kennedy couldn’t imagine being a thirteen-year-old and shouldering such a weighty responsibility. “Whatever happened isn’t your fault.” She prayed the Lord would give her the right words to say so Jodie could truly believe it.
“But he’s so little. He just turned one last month.” Jodie’s voice hardly lifted over a whisper but was laden with terror. “He must have been so scared, and I wasn’t there ...”
“You don’t know if anything happened to Charlie, right? I mean, maybe he’s just fine and safe at home.”
Jodie shook her head. “But then he’s all by himself. He doesn’t even walk yet.” A little sob forced its way out her throat.
“Well, maybe your uncle stopped by to check on you. Or maybe he called and you weren’t there, so he went home. We don’t know.” Kennedy’s whole torso was quivering again, but she hoped Jodie wouldn’t notice. Her mind was spinning. If Jodie’s uncle reported her missing, that would mean people were looking for them. They might get rescued, after all. She didn’t want to raise Jodie’s hopes, so she kept the thought secret and suggested, “Why don’t you say a prayer for Charlie?”
Jodie dried her cheeks. “Do you really think that would help?”
Kennedy swallowed down her doubts. “I’m sure of it.”
“You want me to pray right here?”
Kennedy glanced at Dustin behind the workbench and Vinny on the phone. “Don’t worry. They’re not paying attention.”
“All right.” Jodie collected her breath. “God, please help Charlie not to be really scared. And we hope he’s at home right now and that someone’s there playing with him so he stays happy. Amen.”
Kennedy wondered at the simplicity of this prayer compared to the hour-long discourses she was used to hearing back in Yanji. Somehow, she figured these few sentences meant as much to the Lord as a whole treatise would have. Kennedy was about to add a prayer of her own when Vinny slammed the phone back into his pocket and stomped toward the couch, fists clenched, eyes glaring. She felt Jodie’s whole body go rigid next to her.
“All right. Your little coughing fit’s over. Time to take your medicine.”
- Writer
