Page 110 of Love Undecided
Chapter 50
Kat
We sit for almost an hour, watching the lot continue to fill, kids streaming into the school, parents rushing off to work, teachers speed walking to classrooms. And then, just as fast as it started, the activity slows and then dissipates completely. Bauer is frustrated and on edge.
“How much longer are we going to sit here?” I ask.
He ignores me.
I check my messages - nothing new and exciting that would pull me away from here.
I sigh loudly.
Bauer still says nothing. I take a breath to sigh again when he suddenly sits up straighter in his seat.
“And here we go,” he says. I follow his gaze to the driveway of the lot, sure as shit, a blue Corolla is pulling into the lot. My pinkie finger starts to spasm. I squirm in my seat just a bit.
The car circles the lot around the outer edge then parks at the far end away from us. A man gets out. He looks like a guy you’d barely notice if you passed him on the street.
Short brown hair partially hidden by a navy baseball cap, jeans, brown t-shirt, tennis shoes, and dark sunglasses. He appears clean shaven with a slight build, medium height, and a barely noticeable limp on his right side.
He does a visual sweep of the parking lot, then bends down into the car for something. He straightens, looks around once more, then hurries across the lot to head into the school.
“It's him. I know it is. What do we do?” I ask Bauer excitedly.
“We don’t want to spook him, so we wait, just a bit more, to make sure it’s our guy, and to see if he makes a move.” He pulls out his walkie and tells the other officers that we’ve spotted our guy and to stay alert but stand back and wait for further instruction.
Another two minutes pass with nothing happening. “Aargh! This is killing me!” I tell him.
“You and me both, Cookie,” he says.
We see him emerge from one of the hallways of the school, walking back toward the car. Only he’s not alone. A young girl is walking next to him.
She’s about half his height with curly red hair, wearing a yellow t-shirt with a unicorn picture on it, jeans, gray hoodie, and sandals. She does a little hop skip with every other step, trying to keep up with him. But also looking excited. I wonder if its Kendall Martin.
He’s not holding her hand, or seeming to force her in any way, but he is walking very close to her, bending down to her height when he speaks. His head continually moving back and forth as he visually sweeps the lot, trying to see everything around him at once.
“Do not approach. Stand back. Repeat, do not approach,” Bauer says into the walkie.
“How do we know that’s not just a dad and his daughter?” I ask. Doubting the prophetic wisdom of my pinkie finger, once again.
“I don’t think so. He looks nervous, and he's not holding her hand crossing the lot,” Bauer says.
They reach the car and the man motions for the girl to stand back and turn around, which she does. He opens the door and leans in as though to get something. When he emerges from the car, he puts his hand over her mouth from behind, and she falls into his arms within seconds. He lifts her up and places her in the backseat of the car, then rushes around to the passenger side.
“What is he doing?” I ask Bauer. He’s the one with the binoculars, I can’t see the action nearly as well from my vantage point. He ignores my question, and tells the officers through the walkie to stand down once again.
Jeez, can’t they listen and follow directions after just one command of stand down?
I can see that he’s doing something on the passenger side of the car, I just can’t tell what. He finishes whatever he was doing, then hurries back around to the driver’s side, gets in, and begins to back out of the parking space quickly. His tires squeal a bit as he rushes to escape the parking lot.
Bauer speaks into the walkie, “Move in. Repeat. Move in and apprehend. Do not shoot. Child in the car. Repeat. Do not shoot. Child in the car. Someone get over to that parking space and see what he was doing.”
Police cars materialize from all sides of the lot, quickly blocking the escapes and cornering the blue Corolla. Someone radios in to Bauer that they’ve recovered an unconscious girl from near the vacated parking space, propped up against another car.
She appears to be Makayla Jones.
Another officer radios in that they've stopped the car. But the guy refuses to get out. And that he’s got another girl, who also appears to be unconscious in the backseat.
