Paper Wings and Missing Things

Part 5

After Anna and her dad's visit to Jonas, she wasted no time telling her parents about the paper with "Court Summons" on it. To her indignation, they refused to admit that his actions had been suspicious and, frankly, deserving of further investigation. Instead, Anna was left to pour out her mistrust to Jacob, occupying almost all of their precious time allotted by the weekly phone call. In her mind, she had already decided that Jonas had committed some awful crime and had run away from the law. After all, June 13 had been a month ago, and here he was, completely free and clearly burdened by a guilty conscience.

Although Anna knew Jacob would sense Jonas' guilt, she skipped over describing their first meeting, half-ashamed of how she had confronted him. In the back of her mind, she was secretly terrified Jacob had forgotten about the handprints, and for some reason, she could not bear the thought of his indifference to an issue that meant so much to her. Instead, she bemoaned how he had neatly clipped the vines winding up the porch columns, destroying the jungle it had taken years to grow, and how he had set up new beige shutters for the windows—clearly hiding behind them.

To her relief, Jacob did not dismiss her. "Maybe he's some sort of criminal on the run," he suggested. His voice had been stuffy the whole conversation, but maybe that was just the bad audio quality. At last, however, he sounded animated—probably excited by the prospect of a mystery—and for a moment, Anna had to swallow hard to stop herself from blurting out how much she missed him.

"I saw a key in his house—maybe it goes to some sort of treasure stash."

"He has a suspicious sort of name, anyway," Jacob said.

"It's probably fake."

For a moment, Anna hovered over the idea of telling him that she had an idea—a plan to get him home again. Right now, the only thing stopping their family from coming back was the man living next door. Once Jonas, if that was his name, was gone, the house would be open again—the enemy would be gone. Mrs. Swift could come back—Jacob could come back.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you! We stayed at a motel, and it had an actual waterslide in the pool. I mean, yeah, it was like five feet tall, but you know...oh, and the new house is really cool! I get a bedroom in the attic. It's always the kids living in attics who go on adventures or have something happen to them."

No, it was better to surprise him once she had results, Anna decided. She would tell him, and he would come home, and everything would be alright. In the meantime, she had to come up with an actual plan to convince Jonas that he needed to move again.

"Mom said she'd take me to the Gateway Arch sometime! Seems freaky to think of going inside it and, you know, up to the top. I pictured it being more—flat, like, square edges, like that arch in Paris. And yes, I know it's in the opposite part of the state, but after this drive, anything would be manageable."

"Maybe he's actually a criminal," mused Anna. "Maybe he could get arrested."

"What are you talking about?" Jacob laughed. "Anyway, I think I gotta go. Mom's calling. Hey, come visit soon, okay?"

"Sounds good," Anna said in a low voice. "Goodnight. Bye."

In her mind, she was already trying to decide what Jonas was hiding in his house. Maybe he was smuggling illegal goods, or dangerous weapons, or priceless artifacts from the British Museum. Or maybe, a smaller voice scolded, he just liked his privacy and didn't want everyone seeing some old papers on his table.

Whichever the case was, she had to find out.