Chapter Fourteen
Philip
The apartment was a complete loss. The structure of the house remained, but the inside was destroyed. Thankfully, no one had been home and my neighbor's house cat had escaped out an open window. The cause was yet unknown, but it appeared to have started in my apartment.
I hadn't left anything on this morning, hadn't cooked any breakfast. I hadn't even had coffee.
Outside the apartment, I took off my gear and stashed it away in the truck where it belonged. I’d take it back to the station soon to clean it and refill my oxygen tanks.
I let the crew that was actually on shift takeover.
“Philip!” Ollie’s voice filtered in through the haze of shouting around me and I turned to find him standing there next to a man I recognized as one of the newer police officers in town.
Ollie’s face was pale, and his eyes were red-rimmed. I went to him and pulled him in my arms. “Hey,” I said. “Are you okay? I wasn't home. It was—”
“It's not that,” he said. “It's Christopher.”
My stomach dropped and I looked to the officer. I’d assumed the man was here because of the fire but was it something else?
“What happened to Christopher?”
“Your dad,” Ollie choked out a sob.
The officer spoke up, “Mr. Miller, did you talk with your father today?”
“No,” I said. “What's that got to do with anything? Ollie? What's going on?” I held Ollie’s shoulders and forced him to look at me.
His voice shook as he spoke. “Your dad picked Christopher up from school. They let him take him because he's the mayor, even though he's not authorized to pick him up. We can't get ahold of him. I have no idea where he is.”
I pulled Ollie into my arms and held him. “Oh God.” What in the hell could my dad be doing with my son?
“Mr. Miller, did you tell your dad to pick up your son? Did you give him permission?”
“No,” I said. “I would never. My dad isn't interested in Christopher. I would never let him take him without supervision.” My brain went into overdrive. “Have we gone to his house? His office? When did this happen?”
“He picked Christopher up around eleven-thirty. We were just on our way to your parent’s house to see if he's there.’
“I'll go with you,” I said. “Let's go right now. Have you tried his phone?”
Ollie nodded. “He hasn’t answered the house phone or his cell phone.”
“Let's go.” I was still wearing my fireman pants and my white t shirt. I reeked of smoke and fire, but I didn't care. We all piled into the officer’s car and he sped away from the scene.
Thankfully, my parents lived close by, inside the city limits. Once we were at the house, I was ready to bolt out of the car, but the officer put a hand on my forearm and stopped me.
“Do we have reason to believe that your father could be dangerous or violent if he is here?”
“No,” I said. “I mean, the man is clearly unhinged and he's got a screw loose or some shit, but I don't think he'd be violent.”
“Are you sure? I bet before today you didn't think your dad was capable of kidnapping.”
The officer had a point.
I shook my head. “I don't know. He doesn't own any firearms that I'm aware of, so he shouldn't have anything, and my mom doesn't have a violent bone in her body.”
He nodded. “Mr. Stone, would you like to come with us? Or do you want to wait in the car?”
“Come with you,” he said.
“All right. It'd be best if you stay behind us. Let Philip knock, and I'll be with him, okay?”
Ollie nodded.
We went to the door. I wanted to pound on it or burst into the house unannounced but Jefferies insisted that we knock and so I did.
My mom answered. She brightened when she saw me, but her face turned to a frown when she saw who I was with. “Philip, is everything okay?”
“No,” I said. “Where's dad?” I pushed my way into the house and looked around. “Dad? Christopher? You in here?”
“Christopher?” My mom said. “Why would he be here? What's going on?”
“Ma'am, I'm Officer Jefferies. Can you tell me where your husband is right now?”
My mom looked between me and Jefferies. “He’s at work. He left this morning. I haven't seen him since then. He usually gets home around six, unless he has something else going on.”
“About what time did you last see him?”
“He left at eight-thirty this morning. What is this about?”
“Mom, Dad picked up Christopher from school and we can't find him. He took my son.”
She gasped and held her hand over her chest. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” Ollie said as he stepped into the house. “The school secretary let him take Christopher.”
I grasped my mom’s hand. “Mom, where would he go? He's not at his office. Where would he take him?”
She looked around frantically and stuttered, “I… I have no idea. He's either here or at work. There's no other place he’d—the lake house,” she said.
“Where's the lake house, ma'am?”
“We have a cabin on Lake Dexter. It's about a two hour drive. He mentioned something about it last week. He asked me where the key was. We closed it up a few months ago because we hadn't taken any time to go up there. You remember Philip, you helped us?”
“Yeah. Where's the key, mom?”
“On the hook in the foyer.”
I rushed to the entryway of the house and searched the key hook. There were keys to my mom's car, extra keys to dad’s car, but the lake house key was missing.
“He must have gone there. Mom, what in the hell could he be doing with my son?” I couldn’t contain my anger any longer and my mom flinched as my voice rose.
“I don't know,” she said. “He was really upset yesterday after you left, but I didn’t expect this.” She sobbed.
I turned to Ollie and Jefferies. “Let’s go to the cabin.”
The both nodded.
***
The drive to the cabin took forever. Awful scenarios ran through my head, ranging from best case where we found Christopher completely unharmed and my dad surrendering himself to arrest and spending the next fifty years in jail to absolute worst case which I couldn't even put into words.
I wanted to sit in the back of the cruiser with Ollie. To hold him, talk to him, but he had barely said a word since this whole thing had started.
“We’ll find him, Ollie,” I said. I turned around and looked at him. His jaw clenched, and he just nodded.
I tried not think of any other scenario except finding Christopher unharmed. Anything else left me wanting to throw up.
The lake house sat at the end of a road, our lot was larger than most others. I'd begun to wonder now how it was that we had afforded it in the first place. Had my dad been stealing money from the town since his very first term? What in the hell had he hoped to gain from all of this?
Officer Jefferies had spent a lot of the drive on his radio, putting out an alert for my dad's car and descriptions of my dad and Christopher for other officers. We opted not to send the police to the lake house. There was a police cruiser at my parent’s house in case he returned there.
When we pulled into the drive, the house looked deserted. There was no car in the driveway. Jefferies parked the car and turned to look at Ollie and me.
“We'll do a similar scenario as we did at the mayor's home. Philip and I will go to the door, see if he's there. Ollie, you wait behind us.”
“All right,” I said.
“No,” Ollie said. “I'm going with you to the door. If my son is in there, I want to get to him right away. He's going to be scared.” Ollie hiccupped and swallowed a sob.
“Okay. Let's do this.” Jefferies got out and then opened the door for Ollie. The two of them went to the door, the officer slightly ahead of Ollie, while I waited back.
They knocked and waited. No answer.
The officer knocked harder this time and shouted “Millerstown police. Ian Miller, are you in there? Open the door.”
No answer.
I saw movement in the window, and the curtains fluttered. I made a noise and pointed. Both Ollie and the officer looked. There was a flash of brown hair and then the door swung open.
Christopher launched himself into Ollie's arms. “Dad!”
Ollie fell to the ground with Christopher in his arms. I ran to both their sides. Ollie sat on his knees, he held Christopher in front of him, running his hands down his arms and legs, making sure that all of them were there.
I held Christopher's face in my hands. “Are you all right? What happened? Are you okay?”
Christopher nodded, tears in his eyes. “I'm fine. I'm hungry, but I'm fine.”
Ollie choked out a laugh. “We’ll get you some food. Okay, buddy? Whatever you want.” He hugged Christopher close to him. With his other hand he reached for me and grasped my hand. “He's fine,” Ollie said. “He's fine.”
I don't know if he was reassuring me or himself. Either way, I was beyond grateful.
Jefferies cleared his throat. “The house is empty. There's no one else here.”
“The man that drove me here left,” Christopher said. “Someone called him, and he said something about police being on their way and he left.”
“Did he say where he was going?” I asked.
Christopher shook his head. “No. He didn't say much to me at all. He gave me an iPad and told me to watch cartoons or something. There weren't any games on there, though. But I found some videos. Can I keep the iPad?”
“Did he say anything to you?” Ollie asked. “When he picked you up? When he took you here? Did he say why? Anything? Did you hurt you?”
Christopher shook his head. “He said that he was my Alpha dad's dad. I asked if that made him my grandpa. He said no. He didn't want to be my grandpa.” Christopher made a face that looked a little bit like disgust. “He smelled kind of bad and he mumbled a lot.”
I looked to Officer Jefferies. “What now?”
“We've got a BOLO out on your father's car, if he goes to an airport or a train station to try and get away, we'll catch him. I assume you want to press charges?”
“Yes,” Ollie said. He looked at me. “Sorry, Philip. He can't get away with this.”
I nodded. “Of course. You're right. You're right about the money. You're right about everything.” I pulled Ollie and Christopher both into my arms. I never wanted to let go. I’d never take these two for granted again. I may never let them out of my sight again. “Can we go home?” I asked.
Jefferies nodded. “First we may want to get Christopher looked at. You'll want to speak with a doctor about trauma therapy.”
“I know.” That sort of thing was standard protocol when emergency situations involved children. I just hated to think that we'd have to go through it with our son.