Final Departure

Chapter Eight

        Josh grabbed Johnny by the throat and hoisted him away from the pay phone.

        "What the hell do you think you're doing?" He screamed, pushing Johnny against the stone wall of the building. "Who were you talking to?!"

         "My family!" Johnny cried, choking. "Call them! They'll pay ransom, they'll pay whatever you want, please, just call them!"

        "I don't think so," Josh snarled, shaking Johnny, still gripping his neck tightly. Too tightly. Johnny could barely breathe.  His head felt hot and he could hear his pulse pounding in his ears. "Somebody HELP!" he tried to scream, but his voice sounded abnormal and small. Josh covered his mouth and nose. Unable to breathe, he blacked out.

                                                         *        *        *

        Terrified, Jamie dropped the phone into its cradle and rushed back into the hallway. There was Nick, holding the phone in both hands and hitting the wall with it. He had already made a sizeable dent.

        "Nick, stop!" Jamie cried, prying the phone from his hands. He is going to hurt himself.  Jamie thought. That, or me.

Nick was crying. He picked up the umbrella holder and threw it across the room. He grabbed fistfulls of his hair.

"Nick, it's okay!" Jamie exclaimed, desperately trying to calm him down. Eric came down the stairs then, his eyes widening as soon as he saw Nick's state.

         "No, it's not okay!" Nick yelled back, his eyes searching the room frantically.

Eric crossed the room to try to help Jamie control Nick. He had seen the whole scene from the foot of the stairs.

        "What happened?" he asked.

"He's going nuts!" Jamie answered, struggling to keep Nick's arms behind his back.  He had been so calm just moments earlier...so stoic as he told her the story about...

"Nick," Jamie said firmly.  "Remember what you just told me.  Remember the dentist appointment."

It took a few seconds, but eventually Nick relaxed a bit, still crying, but at least not as frantic.  He stood up straight and Eric let go of him, looking confused.

        "Okay, what was that all about?"  Eric asked.

       "Johnny called," Jamie said, running back to the phone. "I'm going to see if the operator can trace the call."

                                                        *        *        *

At 10:50, Medford operator Barbara Quincy was just getting ready to close up for the night and let Ann Porter take her place, but she decided that there was no possible harm in taking one final call before clocking out.

        "Operator, may I help you?" she asked, stifling a yawn. A  nervous voice on the other end of the line replied, "Yes, I hope so. You see, we just got a phone call from a child that's been missing for a few hours....”

                                                        *        *        *

        "Yes?" Jamie heard the woman reply calmly.

        "Well,” Jamie replied, taken by surprise.  She had been hoping for some kind of advice from this woman, if nothing else. "I don't know how this works. Could you trace the number? It's really important." 

        "Can you hold?" the woman asked, and without waiting for an answer, she put Jamie on hold.

Jamie looked around while she waited, noticing that Eric had managed to calm Nick  down, and they were now both sitting on the couch watching Unsolved Mysteries. Jamie wasn't sure that Unsolved Mysteries was the best program to watch when you were already at the center of a missing persons investigation yourself, but she decided not to say anything. Holding the mouth-piece of the phone under her chin she called over to Eric, "Everything okay?"

Eric nodded in her direction, and the woman came back on the phone.

        "I can't give you an exact address," the woman admitted.  "But I can tell you that it came from Congress Street in Portland, Maine.  Will that help?"

Jamie rolled her eyes. "Doll." she muttered. "What was the address?" she asked, pulling out a pen and a piece of paper. The woman repeated the address.

"Okay. Thank you." Jamie told the woman, and hung up the phone.

Eric and Nick didn't move from the couch.

"Portland, Maine. Congress Street," she said, suddenly rushing up the stairs into Nick's room. She came back down the stairs with a pair of pants and a shirt in her hands. In the middle of the living room, she started pulling her clothes on over her pajamas. 

Nick and Eric just watched.

What is she doing? Nick thought to himself as Jamie pulled on her shirt and put up her hair.

        "Hey Jamie!" Eric cried, shielding his eyes, but Jamie paid no attention. She just concentrated on buttoning up her shirt.

        "Get dressed," she told Eric and Nick, putting on her shoes.

       "Why?" asked Eric, jumping up. The boys were both in their boxer shorts and old graphic t-shirts, which was their normal attire for sleeping.  Instead of moving toward the bedroom, however, they just stared at her.  She got behind them and started pushing them up the stairs toward their rooms.

        "Go get dressed," she said, exasperated.  "My uncle has a private jet.  We're going to call in a favor."