Finding Haylee

My phone rang, so I checked who was calling me. Unknown number, but I answered it.

 

“Hello?” I said into the speaker.

 

“If you ever want to see your daughter and son again, you will bring me one million dollars today at four in the park. There better not be any police, or I will kill the both of them right there in front of you,” said a robotic voice.

 

“Can I speak to my daughter?” I asked, pretending that Haylee is my daughter.

 

“NO!” said the ruffled voice. “Mommy, help me! Please help-AAHHHHHHH” Screamed a girl in the background, I assumed it was Haylee. “Shut her up!” said a the computerized voice.

 

“Let me talk to her now, or the deal’s off.” I said firmly.

 

“Fine, hand her the phone.” Said the automatic voice. They’re cooperating with me? That’s a definite first.

 

“Mommy! Help me!” Haylee screamed into the phone.

 

“Am I on speaker?” I asked her.

 

“Yes, Mommy.”

 

“Oh, good, I guess. Now, Haylee, do whatever they say, I am going to get you out of there, okay Haylee?”

 

“Okay, mommy. Please hurry!” Then somebody snatched the phone from her.

 

“You have until four to get the money. There better be no police, or the girl dies, and the boy is taken prisoner.”

 

“Wait!” I scream into the microphone. “I want to talk to my son too.” I demanded.

 

“Fine, give the damn boy the phone.”

 

“Mommy, is this you?”

 

“Yes, Nathan, it is.”

 

“Really? You sound different.”

 

“Stop it, honey, you’re being silly. I’ll get you out of this soon. Don’t worry.” I said into the microphone. Elijah looked at me like I was silly. Stop looking at me like that. I sent to him.

 

Fine, but tell me who you’re talking to.

 

Why? It has got almost nothing to concern you.

 

Doesn’t it? Who’re you talking to?

 

Nathan, Haylee, and their kidnappers. Haylee gave my phone number and they took it thinking that it was your mother’s.

 

Wait… What?!

 

That is right, now shut up for the rest of the conversation and pay attention. We’re getting the police involved.

 

“Give me one million dollars at the Twin Springs Park, or your daughter will be slaughtered and your son will watch the whole entire thing happen.” Then dial tone.

 

“What do we do now?” Elijah asked as I limped to a bench.

 

“Now? Now, we call the cops,” I replied.

 

“But that’s what they said not to do!” Elijah argued with me.

 

“Listen, Elijah, the police are better trained than I on how to find them. If only I had my car, then I could drive to the station.”

“But I thought the doctors didn’t want you driving?” Elijah annoyingly said.

 

“They don’t, but I don’t care. It doesn’t matter much because my car isn’t here in the first place.”

 

“True, true. Still, I can’t believe you’d even think about driving. It would be dangerous.”

 

“Since when did you care?” I asked, but caught myself. “Come on, let’s go. We have to talk to Detective Harding.”

 

She unlocked her phone then pressed some numbers on her keypad and placed the phone over her long hair. I don’t know how she could live with that hair during the summer, but it’s her decision, not mine.

 

“Hello? Is Detective Harding there?” I heard Elizabeth ask the person on the other end of the call. Someone said something, and Elizabeth replied, “Could you put her on the phone please?”

 

“Hello, this is Detective Harding,” the blazing loud speaker said when Elizabeth put the phone on speakerphone.

 

“Yes, I’m Elizabeth Jacks, the person who was stabbed yesterday,” Elizabeth told Detective Harding, “I need to talk to you, but the doctor said I couldn’t drive or run. Could you come to the ballpark to today?”

 

“Why are you at the ballpark?” Harding asked. “Anyways, I’ll be there in two minutes.” Harding hung up.

 

“Great. Just advertize it to the world that we’re talking to cops.” I snidely said.

 

“Oh shut up, Elijah,” Elizabeth replied, getting up. “Come on, we’ve got to be ready to tell her everything when she comes.”

 

“But won’t they find us here?” I whined.

 

“Not the right people. Remember, we want them to think that we’re getting the money, so if anyone’s following us, it’ll be hard to do here. If we stay, then they’ll think we aren’t taking this seriously, and they’ll probably just kill them anyways.” Elizabeth said more, but I blocked her voice until Detective Emily Harding came into the picture, then I came back into our conversation.

 

“Hello, Elizabeth. I see that you have Elijah here with you.” Emma Harding said.

 

“I didn’t know you two knew each other,” Elizabeth said, looking at me.

 

“Well, I wasn’t too sure you two knew each other either.” Harding told her, also looking at me. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

 

“Well, I got a call from this computerized, ruffled voice saying that he had my daughter and son,” Elizabeth said a little too quickly.

 

“Way to start the conversation, Elizabeth,” I smart mouthed under my breath.

 

“What was that?” Harding and Elizabeth said at the same time.

 

“What? Oh, oh, nothing, nothing at all.” Elizabeth rolled her eyes.

 

Harding looked at Elizabeth. “You have children? Aren’t you two too young to have children?” Then she looked at me.

 

 I know I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t help myself. I just took a little dip into her mind. She thought that Elizabeth and I were together?! EW!

 

“What?” Elizabeth replied, “No, No! They were talking about Nathan and Haylee. I made Haylee memorize my phone number last year, and she gave it to them instead of her mother’s. And, EW! I can’t believe you would have thought that, Ms. Harding!”

 

Harding looked surprised by her reaction. “Sorry, I just- Oh never mind, as you kids say nowadays. And how many times do I have to remind you: I want you two to just call me Emma.” Ms.- I mean Emma responded.

 

“Sorry, Emma, but can you help us?” I couldn’t help but ask.

 

“Of course I will help you, but I’ll need to take you down to the station. Of course, the car that the city provides me with doesn’t have a back seat, it just has a cage for criminals, so one of you will just have to sit there.” Emma said.

 

“Well, I can just sit in the car. Elijah can run. He’s really fast, didn’t you know that?” Elizabeth interjected.

 

Way to expose my condition, Elizabeth!

 

Stop with your smart mouth, Shorty.

 

Size doesn’t matter, Snotty!

 

Oh, just shut up with your smart mouth!

 

“Fine!” I shouted at her, not realizing that I’d actually said it aloud.

 

Emma turned around. “What? What are you yelling at?”

 

“Oh, uh…”

 

Don’t say it!

 

“Oh, YES I WILL SAY IT!”

 

There, you blew it. Happy?

 

“Is something wrong, Elijah?” Harding- oh, sorry, I meant Emma- asked.

 

“What?” I replied to her, “What? Oh, no. No, Ma’am. Nothing’s wrong. I’ll just go get a head start.” And I started running.

 

__~*@*~__

 

God, sometimes I hate Elijah. He can be such a smart-alec and rude. I can’t believe Emma Harding thought I was with him. EW!

 

Anyways, Elijah took off running down the street while I sat in Emma’s car. Did I mention that I knew Emma through my Grandfather’s business? Yes, my grandfather used to massage her. My grandfather massaged a lot of people until he had to quit because he fell a few years ago…

 

Emma and I raced Elijah to the Station, and of course, we won. Only because Emma knew her way to it. That’s the only reason we won. When we emerged from the car, Emma was amazed that Elijah got there thirty seconds after we did. “I didn’t know you could run that fast,” She said looking at Elijah. Her gaze changed to me. “You knew?” She asked.

 

“Of course I knew. He plays Baseball, Emma.” I replied. See? I’ve got this. I sent to Elijah.

 

Yeah, right. Like she believes you.

 

Of course she does. She is one of those gullible people who cannot really understand some things…. I have no idea how she became a detective, but that’s just her.

 

Sure, yeah, let’s leave Baseball as my cover!

 

Oh, shut your smart mouth up! And then we walked into the station.

 

“Now, can I hear the message he left you?” Detective Harding asked.

 

“Actually, Emma, I answered it, so there wasn’t a message,” I looked at her. She looked stern. “But you can check to find if there’s some part of my phone that holds information about the call I received.” I tried to stay calm.

 

“Sure,” she held out her hand, so I dug in my pocket to find my phone. “I’ll ask our tech and see if she could find something. Some phones have the tracing calls, and some phones don’t. I think that this phone does,” Emma said as she looked at the screen, and then flipped to see the back.

 

“Okay, but if my grandmother ever calls, I have to answer,” I warned her. My grandmother is overprotective. She freaks out if I do not answer my phone. It’s so annoying.

 

“I’ll make sure that you can answer it when she calls,” Emma said getting up and leaving us at her table to talk. I noticed her hand slipped her phone. Great, she’ll have someone listening in on us.

 

“Now what, Elizabeth?” Elijah asked.

 

Now, we talk. They’re listening in on us.

 

How?

 

See that phone? It’s slipped and on. That’s how.

 

But why would they do that?

To may sure that we’re in no part of your siblings’ kidnapping, duh.

 

Oh.  He sent stupidly.

 

We quit talking because Emma walked back into the room. “Looks like you passed our test,” Emma said. “You, in particular, Elizabeth.”

 

“What do you mean?” I asked for the sake of Elijah. I knew exactly what she meant.

 

“Oh, when you answered your phone, you did exactly what we would have wanted you to do, ask to speak to your children, or in this case, your friends. You pretended that you were their mother. We still can’t get a hold of who called you, but we’re breaking in as much as we could. We did, however get a location on where they were by officers that are looking for them.” Emma explained.

 

Elijah lightened at the news. “So you’re able to take them back now?” he asked.

 

“I’m sorry, Elijah, but by doing that, we’d be jeopardizing everything, including their lives. We’ll have to wait until they’re brought in the open, for the exchange for money. Don’t worry, you, Elizabeth, nor your parents, Elijah, will have to pay. We’ll give you a suitcase full of fake money.”

 

“But I thought that fake money was illegal?” Elijah screamed.

 

“Elijah, this has to be confidential. If we don’t want to alert your family about this new disappearance, then you have to stay quiet in my office.”

 

“She’s right, you know,” I couldn’t help but interject.

 

“Shut up, Elizabeth.” So rude.

 

“We’ll get them, don’t worry,” Emma replied.

 

“I know you will. I think that I’m going to go home before anything else happens. Can you call my grandmother to tell her that I’ll be home in ten?” I asked.

 

“Sure, go on home and rest. You need it after what happened,” Emma replied. “Is Elijah going with you?” Of course she’d answer.

 

“No. If Elijah goes home without Haylee, then their mother would know that something happened to her too,” I replied.

 

“Are you sure, Elizabeth?” Elijah asked.

 

I didn’t answer his question, but instead, I went outside and walked, yes walked, my way home.

 

When I got there, my grandmother was sewing again. She didn’t notice me coming in because the dogs were in the backyard stirring up a bark fest with the neighbor’s dogs. I went up behind her and covered her eyes. “Hi Elizabeth.” She welcomed me, “I didn’t see you coming in.”

 

“So I noticed. Nor did you hear me because of those pesky dogs.” I said. I removed my hands when she said my name.

 

The landline rang, and we both jumped up from our seats at the dining table to go get it. She beat me to the phone. “Wes Stephens, The Pain Relief Studios,” She answered with her normal answer-the-house-phone answer. “Ah, yes, she’s right here. Let me give the phone to her.”

 

“Hello?” I said into the phone.

 

“Hello, Elizabeth. This is-“

 

“Detective Emma Harding, I know.” I interrupted.

 

“Yes, so you know my voice, do you? Of course you do. Well, I’ve called to tell you that we’re going into the hideout and getting your ‘kids’ out. I’ll call again in approximately 10 minutes when we get them, okay?” Emma Harding said.

 

“Sure, but please talk to me only,” I requested, “She doesn’t know yet.”

 

“I see. Alright, I will.”

 

“Okay, thanks. Oh, one more thing, is he still there?” I asked, checking to see if Elijah was there like I told him to be.

 

“Yes, he is, and he’s bored out of his mind,” Emma said, a little put off. “I don’t know how you deal with the smart-alec attitude, Elizabeth. He’s annoying half of the precinct. Any suggestions?”

“Is there any baseball stuff or basketball stuff he could mess with?” I asked.

 

“I think so, but why?”

 

“He likes to play way too many videogames,” I sighed, remembering. “It’ll keep him busy for a while.”

 

“Oh, thanks, Elizabeth. We wish you wanted him to go home. So does he, apparently,” Emma reported. So Elijah wanted to be home? That’s funny.

 

I laughed a little, “Welcome to my past years. Annoying, isn’t it?” I sarcastically told her.

 

“I knew you were sarcastic, but he’s a little over-the-top annoying sarcastic. You usually had some meaning between those sarcastic lines. Him, it’s just attitude,” Emma said.

 

“Well call me back when you get them, will you?” I asked.

 

“Sure thing,” then she hung up.

 

“I’m going to go outside. I’m leaving my phone, if that’s okay,” I told my grandmother. She waved me off, so I went outside. Now, I’m going back to the station to wait.

 

~*~

 

Ten minutes later, and I was back at the station. I walked up to Emma, who welcomed me with open arms. “Why didn’t you say you were coming when we talked over the phone?” She asked.

 

“Because that would freak out my grandmother. I just told her I was going outside, but didn’t say where I was going. Who’s going in to rescue Haylee and Nathan?” I replied.

 

“A bunch of the Homicide cops. No one special. I had to stay in and take care of annoying him,” she said, pointing her head towards Elijah.

 

“Oh, come on, he can’t be that bad,” I tried to reason.

 

“Oh, have you ever seen him like that?” Emma asked.

 

“Actually, yes. Remember, I’ve known him for a while,” I replied.

 

“How long?” Like I was going to tell her, even though she was a cop.

 

“Long enough to know his tricks. He wants to go home and he figures that if he annoys the hell out of all of you, you’ll just send him home. He forgets that you can lock him up,” I replied.

 

“Oh, I see,” she said, with a questioning look, “How long have you known him for exactly?”

 

“Most of my life,” I’m not going to tell her.

 

“Oh, fine. Don’t tell me. Meanwhile, help me control him,” Detective Emma Harding told me.

 

“Sorry to disappoint you, but there’s no controlling him,” I told her, laughing. I didn’t notice that Elijah came in.

 

“Controlling who?” Elijah asked, then laughed. “They’ve arrested your cousin, Elizabeth. They arrested Alex and Don. They were the heads of the secret anti-paranormal society,” Elijah informed us.

 

“Uh… Elijah?” I tried to look confused, We’re with non-paranormal person here. Did you realize that you spoke that out loud?

 

“What? You heard that? Oh…. “ Sizzle, did we expose ourselves? More like did he expose his condition?

 

“What are you two talking about? You two are acting weirdly.”

 

“What?” I ask a little distracted, “Oh, nothing. Nothing at all.”

 

“Did they through them into the county holding facility?” Emma asked.

 

“Wait, did you say Don? Don who?” I asked.

 

“Don, you know, the guy who, uh, Alex was with, uh, that uh, day we uh…” Elijah said.

 

“Too many ‘uhs,’ Elijah. Try again,” I interrupted him, kinda.

 

Don is from the museum,  you know.

 

Oh…. That Don. Finally he’s arrested. For what?

 

The kidnappings of my siblings and attempted murder of you.

 

But he didn’t attempt to murder me. Alex, my own deranged cousin did.

 

Well, both of them are charged with the attempted murder of you.

 

Thanks, I guess. That clears it up. I hope they go away for a long time.

 

They will.

 

“Where’re they taking them? I would like to speak to my cousin,” I requested.

 

 

“No, you can’t. He’s the prime suspect to the kidnappings of your friends, siblings, and he’s your stabber,” Detective Harding denied Elizabeth.

 

“But he’s my cousin! I want to speak to him!” She whined a bit. That’s funny. Elizabeth was like Hermione, she NEVER whined. Like, never.

 

“I’m sorry, Elizabeth, but you can talk to him later, after the trial,” Harding stood her ground.

 

“Can I at least talk to Don?” Elizabeth asked.

 

“None, you can’t talk to either of them,” Harding said sternly.

 

“Can I interrogate them?” Elizabeth persisted.

 

Emma Harding sighed. “I’ll see what I can do.” She turned her back.

 

“Thanks, Emma, for everything.” Emma turned around.

 

“You’re more than welcome. If you need anything, just come and ask,” Emma smiled, turned, and walked out of the room.

 

“Ready to go see your siblings?” Elizabeth asked me.

 

“More than ever,” I replied. We walked out of the room and into a new room where Haylee and Nathan stood. Haylee came running up to Elizabeth and hugged her tightly saying something into her ear. Then she rushed up to me and hugged me.

 

She whispered to me: “Thanks for saving us. I gave them Elizabeth’s phone number instead of mom’s for a reason. I didn’t want mom to worry.”

 

“You did well,” I whispered to my sister, “But didn’t they notice the change in area codes?” Elizabeth’s phone number has a Houston area code, not a Northwest Arkansas area code.

 

“They were out of towners. They had no idea what the area code here was.” No wonder we got away with not being able to alert my mother.

 

“All in a day’s work,” Elizabeth replied.

 

“All in a day’s work,” I repeated. “Yep, if that’s not true, then I don’t know what is.” I looked at Nathan. “You seem quite quiet. What’s got your tongue in a knot?”

 

Nathan looked mad, “What do you mean?” The ten year old screeched at me. “I’m fine, just fine.”

 

Elizabeth looked at me. He most surely is NOT fine. Ain’t that the truth?

 

Can you get into his mind?

 

No. Can you?

 

No. Something’s not right.

 

Isn’t that what my previous statement was?

 

Haylee caught on, apparently. “Stop doing that, guys,”

 

“Doing what?” Detective Harding asked the three of us.

 

“They’re-“ Both Elizabeth and I shook our heads. “They were communicating through faces.” Faces? Faces!

 

Is she really covering our butts like that?!

 

Apparently.

 

I hate that word.

 

Deal with it, Elijah.

 

“I told you two to stop!” Haylee said, before I could reply to Elizabeth.

 

“Stop what?” Harding asked, yet again.

 

“They’re doing the face thing again, Detective Harding.” Haylee said yet again. She’s really getting to be rude.

 

“Sure they are. How could they communicate without us knowing? I could read faces, and they’re not saying anything through faces,” Harding questioned.

 

That blows.

 

You think? We need to get out of here before they find out anything. Come on Elijah. Grab Nathan. I’ll get Haylee.

 

I did as she told me. I pulled Nathan and put him on my back, but Lizzie shook her head. I don’t trust him. She said into my mind. I put him down. “We’re going to go home, if you don’t mind, Emma. Thanks again for everything,” I told Emma and we walked out of the precinct. “Haylee, way to blow it,” I scolded her.

 

“What? They don’t know?” Haylee looked from Elizabeth to I.

 

“Of course they don’t know!” I yelled.

 

“Know what? What is going on between you three?” Nathan yelled. That kid is mad.

 

“Nothing. We’ll tell you when we’re ready,” I said before Haylee could ruin it.

 

“NO!” He screeched at me again, “Tell me NOW!” It’s like the kid is three again. And believe me, that wasn’t a pretty sight.

 

“Stop acting like a three year old.” Elizabeth and Haylee said at the same time.

 

We went home, the four of us, screaming at each other. Haylee and Elizabeth didn’t fight, though. Only Haylee, Elizabeth and I against Nathan, or Haylee and Elizabeth against me.

 

Haylee, Nathan and I went into our house, and Elizabeth went into hers. Mom was overjoyed to have Nathan back, she wouldn’t let go of him for like 30 minutes. It was funny. She hugged me and Haylee too, but Nathan was missing for a long time. She had no idea that Haylee was taken as well.

 

We stopped fighting, because Mom was around, and when Dad came home from work, he nearly cried because Nathan was back. Nathan being missing was taking a toll on the whole family.