Page 59 of Next Level
“Okay, Ma. Okay.”
AGENT TELLEZ
“Hello, thank you all for coming down today. I’m Agent Tellez, and I’m the lead agent assigned to your case,” she says as she enters the room where Brooke, Samantha, and I are seated.
I introduce myself. “Please call me Ray, and this is Brooke, Samantha’s mother.”
“Hello. Okay, let’s get down to business so you all can get out of here.” She glances over at Sam. “Samantha, I need to get as much information from you as I can so we can move forward with prosecuting the men who took you.”
She’s an attractive woman, possibly in her mid-forties, with an average body. You can tell she’s fit and takes good care of herself.
She takes her seat, opens her file, and rearranges the papers.
Once she’s settled, Agent Tellez leans forward, placing her forearms on the table and clasping her hands together.
The agent smiles warmly and begins talking. “Okay, so let’s start from the beginning, shall we?”
With Sam in the middle of us, Brooke and I don’t say anything. We just kind of sit there staring at each other and then at Sam.
Agent Tellez chuckles. “Okay, let me go over what I have, and if you think anything is missing, just let me know. Then I’ll ask you a few questions, and we can go from there. How’s that?”
We offer a silent agreement.
The agent reviews everything we have, and she reads the statement that was given to the Port Angeles police. When she says the men are going to be seen in front of a judge tomorrow, that gets my attention.
I interject, cutting her off. “I thought they were going to be brought back here to be seen in front of a judge.”
She directed her attention to me. “They will, but there is a process that needs to be followed. This is the first of many steps to get them extradited back to California.”
“What do we need to do? How long will this take?” I ask, sounding a bit harsher than I intended.
The agent must be used to this because her demeanor didn’t falter at all. “Ray, I assure you everything is being handled properly, and you don’t have to worry about anything. We are holding this meeting to inform you of the next steps. Samantha will have to testify once they’re back in California, but until then, we have her sworn statement.”
Sam’s voice is so low we barely hear her when she asks, “Did they tell you why they took me?”
“What was that, dear?”
Sam clears her throat and asks again, this time louder. “Did they tell you why they took me?”
I reach over, place my hand on her back, and comfort her as I can see she’s anxious.
The agent moves some papers around, and when she finds what she’s looking for, she says, “At first they tried to say you went willingly, but when we presented them all the evidence showing differently, they both confessed they took you out of hatred for your family.”
“What was their plan for her?” I ask through clenched teeth.
She shrugs. “They said it was a prank at first, but then it got out of hand, so they panicked and went to Mr. Jones’s family cabin to figure out their next move.”
Bullshit.
Sam asks, “What about their real father?”
Now that stumps the agent because her smile finally falters.
“What do you mean? Was he involved in them taking you?”
“No, it was just the two of them, but Garrett was on the phone a lot with someone. He was trying to figure out when and where they were going to meet now that they had me.”
This has the agent’s full attention. She rummages through the paperwork, and we all stay quiet.
