Enigma

by Leslie Drennan

  “Sure, tell him Matalyn Holland is here to speak with him.”

  As soon as the words came out of my lips, the dispatcher dropped the pen she had in her hand onto the desk, looking at me as though she was seeing a ghost. Without wasting a second more, she paged Detective Jonesy and let him know I was there to speak with him. Just as I thought he would, he agreed to see us. The dispatcher told us to have a seat and he would be right out to get us.

  When the door leading back into the building opened a tall, athletic man with a crew cut looked at me as he asked me if I was Matalyn Holland. I nodded, and he asked us to follow him into his office so that we could discuss matters privately. Walking into the doorway, I noticed the walls were painted white. Lined one right after the other were framed photos of officers from the past and present. The frames had nameplates on them with the officers’ names and years of service with the force. Those who held rank had their position labeled on the plate as well.

  Detective Jonesy’s office was the last door on the right. Going inside, the walls were the same color as the hallway, though decorated quite differently. On one wall Detective Jonesy had a display of awards he had been given for his exemplary work in the criminal justice field. On the wall adjacent to it was a display of several medals, awards, and plaques he had been given from the U.S. Marine Corps for his exemplary work for our country.

  In each of the two corners behind his desk there was a flag, and on the wall above his chair was a wall hanging of the Marine Corps Semper Fi emblem. In the right corner stood the American flag and on the left was the state flag. His desk looked as if it had definitely seen better days. It was metal and painted a drab green color. The drawers squeaked when they opened and wouldn’t shut unless they were slammed. There were obvious stains from coffee mugs that had left their signature on the desktop. Stacks of folders sat on one end of the desk, and an outdated computer monitor sat on the other. Two older-looking yellow chairs sat in front of the desk where Avan and I sat quietly.

  “Matalyn Holland, you’ve grown up quite a bit since I last saw you,” Detective Jonesy said as he closed the office door and made his way around his desk to sit in the chair.

  “Yes sir, I have.”

  “And what is your name, sir?” Detective Jonesy asked, looking over to Avan.

  “My name is Avan Rork, sir,” Avan responded without a hint of the nervousness that I was being swallowed by.

  “Matalyn, I understand you want to discuss a case?”

  “Yes sir, the one where I was kidnapped.”

  “Yes, we were very lucky we were able to find you before the suspects left town with you,” Detective Jonesy said as he picked up the coffee cup from his desk and took a drink.

  “I wanted to ask a few questions about the investigation if I could,” I asked hesitantly.

  “I’ll tell you all I know, but I have to warn you that it isn’t much,” he said as he looked over at Avan.

  “I understand you never arrested the suspects. Is that correct?”

  “That is correct.”

  “I know where they are. They are going by different names and living in Oceanview!” I said, feeling myself getting worked up.

  “Matalyn, what all do you know about the investigation?”

  “Only what I found in an old newspaper article.”

  “Well, I’m just going to tell you like it is, okay? I don’t have much information due to circumstances surrounding the investigation. We couldn’t move forward with anything. Everything we tried led us to a dead end. Your parents actually dropped the case, leaving us empty handed. It was shut on us before we even got started with it. I understand that your parents are no longer here, and unfortunately, with you being a minor and not having memory of the event, we would need your parents to press charges against these people. Statute of limitations says they would have to be charged with the crime by your twenty-eighth birthday. The problem here is that other than your parents and the mystery citizen who made the phone call alerting us to the park, there were no other witnesses to prove anything.

  “Nobody saw them take you, and even the person calling in reported all they saw was two people at the park acting weird with a baby. We couldn’t prove that their story was a lie. The only thing they actually did wrong was leave town before the investigation was wrapped up. Since your parents dropped all charges and shut the case for us, we didn’t have a right to arrest them anymore. At this point a case against them would be circumstantial at best, and I don’t see a judge or jury putting two people away for circumstantial evidence,” he stated without sugar coating anything.

  “Why would my parents drop the charges and shut the case?” I asked, blown away that my dad, infamous for his career in law, would just back down without a fight.

  “Matalyn, I have asked myself the same question for years. If I could come up with even a halfway decent answer and make you feel better, I would.”

  “Well, thank you for all your help,” I said as I shrugged my shoulders, not knowing what else to say.

  “Anytime, Matalyn. You’ve really grown up to be a beautiful young lady. It’s hard to think the last time I was this close to you how tiny you were. I bet you didn’t weigh much more than ten to fifteen lbs.”

  “Oh, I do have one more question before I go.”

  “I’ll try to answer it the best I can,” Detective Jonesy said. He kept glancing over at Avan.

  “When did our old house burn down?”

  “That happened last year. An older couple had been living there and left for vacation. Forgetting to blow out a candle, they took off on a road trip to Iowa to see their daughter. They hadn’t been gone for over an hour when the candle set the living room curtains on fire and it went up like a bonfire.”

  “Oh okay, well at least no one was injured,” I replied sadly as Avan and I made our way to the door.

  After exiting the station, we got back in the car and headed down the highway back toward Oceanview. I now had interesting new information about Sharon and Damien or whatever their actual names were. I just couldn’t figure out what they could have wanted with me or what they thought they could possibly gain by kidnapping me. I really felt uncomfortable staying in the Montgomery house at all now. Avan offered to find me a place to stay, but after thinking about the circumstances at hand, I thought it would be more dangerous for everyone if I gave them any inclination that I had dirt on them.

  I still needed more answers before I made any kind of move. This was like a game of chess that I was playing with my life, so I had to be careful. The rest of the ride home was quiet due to me being too tired to focus on conversation. Avan told me to relax and get some rest, which would have been a great idea if I could find some way to avoid ever having to go home. I could feel my life starting to unravel, and I did not like it one bit.

  CHAPTER 9

  It had been two weeks since Avan and I had made our little day trip to Bridgepoint, and no one had seemed to notice. I was very careful not to let on that I had found anything out. I did not even think about the trip unless I was inside my room, feeling safe under the protection of the angel my mother had left me. Lena had come home acting as if nothing had happened with Ian, making me wonder if she was still leading him to believe that something could come out of nothing when it came to him and me. I just chose to go on about my business.

  Lena had to know it was obvious that I found ways to stop hanging around with her as much, unless it was because we were both at home, but she pretended not to care, even though I could tell my new posse that I started hanging around was not of her approval. Every time Avan would come get me in the morning, I would look up to see Lena’s face staring out her window with a look that I was afraid might just melt his pretty car into a puddle on the driveway. She had stopped going to Spirits at all. I guess she wanted to stay away from having to see with her own eyes that all the staff members treated me as if I was part of the crew.

  Over the last month they had all started to look at
me as a sister since I was with Avan. In fact, I was so close to all of them now that I never felt threatened if any of them were close by. I knew they would protect me without a second thought. I even started learning how to make things on the menu at Spirits and helped out when things got busy. I still had not made an effort to go on a Saturday night for the concert because now that I fit in as part of the Spirits family, I really did not want them to try to drag me on stage. I actually never even tried to sing, aside from the times alone in my car, but I definitely had no desire to debut myself in a room full of people.

  School was an obvious change for Lena as well when she came back. When she left she had been the center of attention with all eyes on her. Not that we gave a rip, but now every eye was on me and Avan. All eyes were on us because Avan was always seen as unattainable and I was the girl who got him. Not to mention, everyone had noticed the way my appearance had gone from being pretty (what I heard rumored in the hallways) to stunning since I received the gift my mom had left for me. Lena became the backup conversation to me, which was something she was never going to get used to. Like every other girl who had ever tried to get Avan’s attention, her desperate attempts had failed time and time again.

  She could never even get any of his friends and coworkers to glance at her. I was still in shock to know that anyone, especially Avan Rork, would choose me over the girl that most guys doted on as being some kind of goddess. I really was not used to all the attention it drew from others yet. I knew people talked about me all the time for being Lena’s best friend and living in her house, but this was a completely new level of news coverage. It was as though I had gone from being the run-of-the-mill actress in Hollywood to getting the lead role in the biggest box-office hit of the year!

  I could care less that people had moved me into the number-one spot. I had no intentions of being the royalty of Oceanview High School to begin with, but it just happened without me trying. Lena reacted completely different than I thought she would. Rather than trying to get closer to me, I felt like she was just standing off to the side unnoticed and watching from a distance, strategizing.

  This behavior was totally out of character for Lena, considering she despised losing, even if it was a game I really was never even playing. I felt like she was waiting for me to mess up somehow or get obsessed with the feeling that she fed from when she was in the limelight. The problem is that I had no feeling at all. I was never trying to be noticed or gain self-empowerment, so I had no idea what she felt when she was on top, per se. All I knew was that her unusual behavior made me nervous. She had resorted to not coming into my room since she returned home, and though she pretended all was well, I could tell something was different about her.

  I hated it when my birthday fell on a school day just as much as I hated when it fell on a Saturday. February 14 on a school day served one of two purposes. (1) It caused people to spend every red cent they had on delivered presents to their significant others. (2) It made single people feel unwanted and sad that they wished all day there would be a delivery for them. Even though it was my birthday, for the past three years it had made me feel lonely and alone. Sure Lena and her dad had always bought me a gift and I always ended up going out to dinner with her, but it would never replace my parents.

  Up until now, I had always known just what to expect on this day. When my parents were alive, we always celebrated as a family. My dad and I would take a special trip to the jewelry store, where I would get an addition to my charm bracelet before meeting my mom at my choice of restaurants for a birthday dinner. When we got home, my mom would always have a homemade strawberry birthday cake with strawberry icing and Happy Birthday, Mattie written on top.

  When I would go to blow out the candles, they would always relight! I could always count on Dad to buy trick candles! After singing “Happy Birthday,” they would give me my gift, but it never compared to the celebration itself.

  Once I moved in with Damien and Lena, my birthday lost the special feeling. Dinner and a material gift that had both Lena and Damien’s name on it, though he was usually away for work, followed by a cake Lorenzo made. The cake from Lorenzo was the part I enjoyed most. Though he could make everything under the sun, he always made sure to make my cake just like my mom had. He even put on the trick candles my dad had bought every year. This year I would be missing Lorenzo to add the special touch to my birthday that I used to fill the hole in my heart left on my birthday every year from the absence from my parents.

  I also no longer had my charm bracelet to remind me of the tradition of going to the jewelry store. The one thing that was very different this year, besides the fact that Lorenzo would be absent, was that Avan would be right by my side. On the way to school this morning, he told me that today was going to be very special for a special angel. I liked the way he used the nickname my parents had for me. It made me feel like their memory remained alive. I had no idea what Avan was up to, but I had a feeling he had something up his sleeve.

  I was sitting in Ms. Greer’s class behind Bradley, copying the notes off the board, when I noticed he could not manage to keep a straight face. Bradley was smiling as he chewed on a piece of gum while he kept turning around looking at me. I just knew Ms. Greer was going to tell us to gather our things and leave any second. My first attempt to thump him in the back of the head and telling him to stop only made him laugh harder, so I was not about to try that again. He obviously found this all very amusing, because the more flustered I got, the more it seemed to inspire him to continue the behavior. Everyone knew Bradley was a class clown, so no one else paid much attention to him, aside from the teacher, who kept looking up from her desk, giving us the evil eye.

  “What did you smoke before class?” I asked in an irritated whisper as I tried to copy the notes word for word.

  “Not a thing. Today is just an exciting day,” he replied through a snicker.

  “Bradley, you are going to get me kicked out of class if you do not turn around and stop!”

  “Nah.”

  Without another word, the classroom door opened and my jaw hit the floor. Declan, Trev, Alex, and Dorian all walked into the room wearing tuxedos. Alex winked at me with a huge smile. I felt myself sliding down into my chair, wishing I could disappear under my desk, while Ms. Greer looked up and took off her glasses. I knew whatever they were doing here had something to do with Bradley’s over-the-top snickering and distracting behavior this morning.

  “Hello, ma’am. We are here to deliver a singing telegram. Is Mattie Holland in class today?” Alex asked, addressing Ms. Greer as if he had not seen me when he walked in.

  Everyone turned to look at me and then back to the quartet in tuxedos standing beside Ms. Greer’s desk. They all knew them from Spirits being the most popular place in town. It was not hard to spot a staff member from Spirits, even if you had never been there, due to the way they looked. I felt my face turn red as Bradley laughed out loud, popping his gum behind his teeth.

  “I’m going to kill you for not warning me about this!” I whispered to Bradley, who just winked and smiled in return.

  “Why yes, Mattie is here. Mattie, raise your hand please,” Ms. Greer said in a tone that said her icy heart was melting.

  Within seconds all four of them had strategically placed themselves around me. Trev pulled me out of my desk and onto his knee, where he knelt beside me.

  “Mattie Holland, this is a singing telegram from Avan Rork to his special angel!” Declan announced loudly enough for everyone to hear, causing the guys to snicker and the girls to grab their heart in a collective “Aww!” that filled the room.

  With that they performed an acapella version of “Hooked on a Feeling” in perfect harmony, ending with all four of them presenting me with a red rose and a kiss on the cheek. I could have died! The idea was one of the sweetest I’ve ever heard, but being embarrassed easily, I would be a permanent shade of red today.

  “That is the sweetest thing I have ever seen! Mattie, you are su
ch a lucky girl!” Ms. Greer said, wiping happy tears from her eyes when they were finished with their presentation.

  “Thank you. Happy Valentine’s Day!” Dorian said as they exited.

  The rest of the class period was pointless, as Ms. Greer joined in conversation with all the other girls in class, asking me if Avan was always this charming or if this was a first. I had no idea how to answer or comment as they all started talking about how good he looked and how dating him must make me feel like a princess in a fairytale. Stealing a look at Bradley, I noticed he was laughing so hard he was shaking. I wanted to punch him in the arm, but I controlled myself. The rest of the guys in class were busy defending themselves as some of the other girls in class were accusing them of being unromantic turds because all they bothered to get their girlfriends was a teddy bear. I was just counting down the minutes to the bell.

  After leaving Ms. Greer’s class and walking to second period, the red on my cheeks did not get much better. Every girl from first period hit the hallway in a frenzy, telling everyone about the singing telegram Avan had sent me, which spread like wildfire! All eyes were on me before too long as Bradley escorted me to my next class. I threatened him the entire way for not warning me about that little surprise while he laughed with amusement.

  Bradley was the guy who loved every second of his high school experience. He was never stressed about tests or assignments that were late. He could care less who he got as a lab partner, if he got detention, suspension, or anything else. He was the class clown in every class he had and lived up to the reputation.

  Another thing Bradley could care less about was how girls drooled over him. He just walked down the hall as if he never even noticed that girls were commenting on his sea-green eyes and light blond hair, which he kept short and parted on the right side. Unlike Avan, Bradley preferred athletic wind pants and tennis shoes with his white t-shirt for comfort measures, throwing a pair of jeans on at Spirits before his shifts.