Stolen

by Jalena Dunphy

  “How did you find me?” I ask, twisting in my seat to see him clearly, needing an answer to at least one of my questions.

  His hands tighten around the steering wheel. “I-I well, I don’t know how you’re going to feel about this, but I had put a small tracker in your arm while you were sleeping after you had found out about Rogan. It’s a simple device, completely removable; it just enabled me to track you. I was afraid you might run or, honestly, I was afraid something like this,” he says while waving his hand up and down my tormented body, “would happen. I know you’re probably upset, and I don’t blame you. I would be, too, but had I not, I never would have found you. As it was, it took longer than it should have. There was a problem with the frequency between the device and the software used to track it.”

  Looking at the man who saved me, I can’t find it in me to feel anything but gratitude. He did what he knew was best for me, even if I may not like the idea of being monitored by a computer somewhere. It did save me.

  “Thank you,” I say as I turn back around in my seat, looking ahead into the darkness of the night, wondering what will happen next.

  After a subtle nod of recognition to my gratitude, Bruce rests his hand on my knee for the remainder of the ride. I don’t flinch from his touch as you may expect, but then, it’s Bruce; he’s the exception to every rule.

  When we pull into the driveway of my house I’m relieved to be home and not at the police station like I had assumed we would be. Looking at the front door, it feels as if it’s moving farther and farther away from me. How am I going to walk that far without collapsing?

  Looking anxiously to Bruce, he quiets my fear by telling me he’ll carry me inside if that’s okay with me. Without hesitation I agree; I know I can’t do it myself.

  Lights blind me when my door opens. I scream. I don’t know why I pick this time to scream. Maybe it’s just because I have had enough. Maybe it’s because I’m ready to snap and this is going to be the thing to do it.

  “Get away from her!” Bruce shouts to someone, or maybe everyone, snapping shot after shot of me sitting in the car.

  I feel stupid having him carry me now that we have an audience, but the fact hasn’t changed that I still won’t be able to make it on my own, as much as I despise that.

  “Hold on to my neck and just keep your head down, okay?” he instructs in a hushed voice so the reporters won’t hear him.

  “Okay,” I say as I hold tightly to his neck.

  Lights flash, voices blur together with questions, and the reality of it all hits me. Forcing myself not to break in front of all these strangers, I hold it together for the distance from the car to the front door. As soon as the door closes and locks behind me, it all comes out in tormented cries, wails, screams, sounds I didn’t know I could make, filling the house with a vocal rendition of the reality I just lived through.

  Mom is running to me, tears streaking her face. Bruce carries me to the family room, sitting down with me in his lap on one of the couches. Mom sits beside us stroking my hair, thanking God for bringing me home safely while continuing to cry.

  “I love you so much, honey. I’ve been so worried. Are you okay? I mean, I know you’re not, but are you kind of okay?” she stutters. “I mean, that didn’t sound right. I just meant were you hurt? Oh, God, I missed you! I love you so much!” she reiterates through her hysterics.

  I know she needs me to be okay. She needs me to tell her I’ll be fine, but will I? How do I get over this? I don’t have the strength to deal with her right now. Burying my head into Bruce’s chest, I close my eyes. I know it’s useless, but I do everything I can to forget what happened.

  This is where I fall asleep, in Bruce’s arms with mom still crying beside me.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Three Years Ago . . .

  “Jess? Jess, you have to wake up now,” a male voice coaxes me from my anything but restful sleep.

  A male voice? No! No! He found me again! I’m back in that basement! “Get away from me!” I scream, slashing my hands through the air, hoping to hit him before he takes me away again. I scream louder. Someone will hear me. Someone will come save me!

  Arms close in on me from behind, just like when he took me before. He has me. Whether it’s from exhaustion or fear, I can’t say, but tears are streaming down my face, burning a path from where they begin to where they fall. The arms tighten. I kick my feet back in hope of hitting his knees and knocking him down, but the hold only tightens.

  “Jess, stop!” he shouts exhaustedly. “It’s me. It’s Bruce. I’m not going to hurt you. Please, just calm down.”

  Bruce? No! He’s messing with me, playing games with my head. Bruce would never hurt me, never restrain me like this. “You’re not Bruce!” I scream at the liar behind me. “Now let me go before he finds you again and kills your ass!”

  I hear a chuckle from behind me. “That’s quite the threat. I know I’d be afraid if I thought someone like me was coming after . . . me?” he questions, seemingly confused on which pronoun to use.

  I’m confused. Why is he taking my threat so lightly? Why is he saying Bruce would be coming after Bruce? Unless, unless this really is Bruce. “Bruce?” I ask, hoping it’s truly him.

  “That’s who I’ve been trying to tell you I am. I’m not going to hurt you. So, will you stop kicking me long enough for me to let you go?”

  “Fine,” I deadpan.

  “That’s not very convincing, but I’m going to hope for the best, if only for my shins sake,” he says, while loosening his grasp on me.

  Whipping around, relief overflows from me. It is Bruce! I jump into his arms, wrapping my arms so tight around his neck I hear him gasp for air. “Sorry,” I say, while loosening the grip, but not letting go.

  “You’ve got quite the fight in you,” he says proudly. “I was scared of you for a while there. You’re pretty strong, for a girl, that is,” he says jokingly.

  “Hey, don’t be an ass!” I pinch him on the arm, although he probably didn’t feel it through all his muscle. I forget how strong he really is, making me happy in this moment that I’ll never be on the receiving end of that strength. “I could take you,” I declare, though both of us know that’s a ridiculous threat.

  “Oh really?” he says in a challenging tone. “I’d love to see that.”

  Forgetting for a moment why I’m in his arms, my mood lightens until he tries to set me down, then I remember. My hold tightens and tears fall once more, following the trail of the now dried tears from before.

  “Okay,” he says soothingly. “I’ve got you. No one will hurt you again.”

  He takes a seat back on the couch, cradling me in his lap all the while. This is where I feel safe. This is where I’m not so scared.

  “Shh. You’re okay. I’m here,” he says as a mantra while stroking my hair away from my face. “I’ve got you.”

  I cry, for hours, it seems, and he lets me. He never tells me to stop, that there’s nothing to cry over, that I’m fine so no tears are needed. I don’t know if anyone would say that to me, but being paranoid someone would is enough to make me want to cry more.

  I feel so alone, only safe when I’m in Bruce’s arms. Mom is gone. I don’t know where she runs off to, but as soon as Bruce is here, she leaves. I don’t know where Cass is. She hasn’t come to see me once since I’ve been home, though I was asleep so maybe she did and I just don’t know it.

  Rogan is gone. He’ll never hold me again like Bruce is holding me now. I’ll never see the goofy picture he took last summer of him lying in the front lawn, pouting after I had told him I wouldn’t go to the theater to watch one of his terrible movie choices, come up as his picture when he texted me. Just seeing that picture could make any day better, even before I read his message. I’ll never ride in his car again, never kiss him again, and never make love to him again. I thought we would marry and have tons of little Rogans, but that won’t happen either. My future is a blank canvas, and I don’t even have the paint
to paint a new future.

  “Jess? Can we talk for a minute?” Bruce asks, a while after my tears have dried up.

  “Sure,” I answer him, knowing this had to happen eventually. I shift off his lap so I can see his face as he speaks.

  “This story has somehow made national headlines. I don’t know how that happened, or quite frankly why it happened, but it did. I’ve been able to keep the reporters at bay so far, but it won’t last forever. At some point you’re going to want to leave this house. Rogan’s funeral is the day after next.”

  I suck in a sharp breath. Rogan’s funeral is in two days, not decades from now as I had expected it to be. Smoothing the sleeves of my shirt, running a hand through my hair, finally wringing my hands together in my lap to stop their fidgeting, I return my focus to Bruce’s words.

  Continuing, without calling out my near meltdown, he adds, “I think it would be best if we talk to them before then. I don’t want them hounding you at the funeral. At least this way they should be satisfied enough to leave you alone until after that.”

  They would do that; disrespect the dead just to get their story? As much as I don’t want to, I’ll do whatever I have to if it will keep them from all but spitting on Rogan’s grave with their callous behavior. “Tell me what I have to do and I’ll do it,” I state emotionlessly.

  With sorrow in his eyes Bruce says, “I think a press conference would be the easiest way to do this. I don’t want you to have to go through this one by one. We’ll just get it done in one swoop. Does that sound okay? Do you think you can do that?”

  Can I do that? Hell no! For Rogan, though, I’ll do my best. “Do I have a choice?” I ask angrily.

  “I know this is terrible, but I just don’t see a better way to handle this. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize for their horrible behavior. They should be ashamed of putting people through any of this just for a story.”

  “Yeah, I know. Even after so many years in this business, I’ve never been able to understand how they justify subjecting people to opening up about something that’s obviously traumatic to them. Sadly, this is the way of the world. This is why I always push a press conference. It gives them what they want, but in a single shot. I’ll set it up for tomorrow morning, then you’ll be done for a while.”

  “A while?” I repeat.

  Shifting uncomfortably, he says, “Well, honestly, I doubt this will be the end of it. Someone will want a personal interview. We’ll be able to keep them at bay, I’m sure, but they’ll probably be around until something new and shiny draws their attention away from this story. This should at least help keep them away from the funeral. That’s my only concern at the moment, as I’m assuming it’s yours, too?”

  “Of course it is,” I answer sharply. “When will I have to talk to the police about what happened?” I ask, having forgotten that I haven’t done that yet.

  “I thought what we could do is I’ll take your statement here, give it to the police, then after the funeral we’ll go in and do it all formally.”

  After the funeral? In two days I’m going to have the longest day of my life; bury the love of my life, then tell the police about the man who killed him and nearly me. I don’t think this is exactly normal. I can’t feel sorry for myself. I’m alive. I’ve survived this far, barely, but survived nonetheless. I have to get through this.

  “Bruce?” My mind is suddenly racing with questions.

  “Yeah.”

  “I can kinda get why the reporters are after me now, but they were here the day Rogan died, asking if I knew who was after him, why someone would be after him. Why would they have been asking questions like that? I hadn’t been kidnapped yet, so why questions like that? I mean, you said the EMTs thought it was a suicide, but once you got there you knew it wasn’t. Did you tell them that? I don’t get how it quickly turned from a suicide to a murder? And I don’t get the correlation between his murder and me. Was someone after him? Is there something you’re not telling me?” I feel so stupid; why hadn’t I asked any of these questions before? Reporters seem to know more than I do, and I lived through most of it!

  “We don’t need to get into that right now. Why don’t you go rest, maybe take a hot shower, and just unwind from all of this,” he says, clearly trying to placate me.

  “No way, Bruce! Don’t you dare treat me like I’m a pathetic, naive, child! Tell me what you know! Now!” I demand franticly, my body shaking with nerves. How dare he!

  Standing abruptly, he paces the family room, running his hands back and forth through his short hair, mumbling something incoherent to me. I want to shake him, yell at him to dish before I start hitting him uncontrollably again.

  Finally.

  “Fine! You want to know? I’ll tell you, but don’t say I didn’t warn you that you wouldn’t want to know this right now!” He stops pacing. Sitting nervously on the sofa across from me, not beside me like normal, he begins. “Rogan was being stalked, too.”

  What? How is that possible? Before I can ask, Bruce continues.

  “I heard through a friend who knew about your case that a boy in a similar situation had reported receiving a letter and a picture from an unknown person. I took a look at the evidence and everything about it matched up to yours.

  “His letter mentioned you, instructing him to stay away from you, that he would kill you if he didn’t. The picture was a close-up of you in a hallway at school. Naturally, the police thought it was a fellow student or maybe a teacher, but they couldn’t find a link to anyone there.

  “Rogan was so afraid someone was coming after you he was hysterical, demanding someone watch over you so no one could get to you. I introduced myself, not telling him I already knew you or anything about your case. He kept demanding I send someone to watch you at all times. I reassured him I would put someone on it right away. Since I was already on your case, already protecting you, I wasn’t lying to him, which I think helped convince him I was telling the truth.

  “So, anyway, I talked to him about everything that had happened to him. He told me he had come home from school when he saw a manila envelope on his front porch. It had his name on it in black permanent marker, just like yours. He thought it might have been from you, hoping you wanted to get back together but didn’t know what to say to his face, so instead wrote it in a letter. He said you like to write, so he was optimistic it was from you. ‘Who else would write a letter?’ he had asked. When he opened it, a picture of you fell out. Again, he thought it was still from you, that you had sent him a ‘selfie,’ I think he called it.

  “I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t know what that was. He explained that it’s pretty much what it sounds like, a picture you take of yourself and post to your Facebook account or through texting, or Snapchat, or whatever else you kids do now. I guess I don’t need to explain that to you, though, do I?” he asks rhetorically.

  “He thought it was kinda cool that you were doing it with a real camera, not your phone. That was before he read the letter, realizing it wasn’t from you at all.

  “I’m paraphrasing here, but it basically said he, whoever he is, was watching him. That he knew you had broken up with Rogan and that he had helped push you to do that, that if Rogan wasn’t careful, that if he didn’t stay away from you, he would kill you.

  He was much blunter in his letter to Rogan than he had been in yours. Rogan was terrified for you; he believed that whoever this was might kill you, even if he did stay away from you. The letter ended with a threat to Rogan that he had better watch his own back, that sometimes things need to happen to prove a point.

  “I tried to warn Rogan that this was a serious threat against his own life, but he wouldn’t listen. He kept pushing that you be taken care of. I was working out the details in assigning someone to be permanently on his case, like I am yours. This was three days before he was killed.

  “This comes back to your question of why the reporters thought someone was after him. I’m thinking someone leaked the
information on the letter he received, which led to your name, which led to them hounding you with those questions. They probably believed you knew about the letter he received, therefore had some ideas on who was behind it.

  “As far as the murder declaration, I think that also came from someone on the force. I didn’t say anything to anyone at the scene, but everyone saw the note. By the time the EMTs got to the morgue, everyone was buzzing with this being a murder, that a stalker killed him, threatened his girlfriend’s life. There was no way anyone should have known any of that. I still don’t know who leaked the information, but I swear to God, when I find out, I’m going to bash his skull in,” he says with full sincerity. Again, I’m happy not to be on his bad side.

  “I was at the morgue when this happened but there was nothing I could say to stop all the speculation. This brings us to now. This is why they’re interested in you.”

  I’m stunned. Rogan was being stalked, too. Rogan was so worried about my safety, he didn’t heed the warning that he was in danger, too. We were both so worried about the other that it seems neither of us fully grasped the extent of what this monster could, or would, do, and now Rogan is dead.

  “Okay,” I say, standing, ready to go upstairs.

  Bruce’s hand tightens around my upper arm, stopping me from moving. “Okay? That’s all you have to say?”

  Shrugging, I tell him, “What else is there, Bruce? My boyfriend is dead. We were both being stalked. The man got into my house. He took me and nearly killed me. Had you not gotten there when you did, he would have. Reporters are after me now, and I still don’t know who the man is. I feel just as vulnerable as I did before he took me. That’s not going to change no matter if he is or isn’t in prison. My life is going to hell, and I don’t have it in me to care anymore.