He Saved Me

He Saved Me Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Six

Johnathan's POV

I was sitting at the kitchen table, staring at Isobel's untouched birthday cake when the doorbell rang. In the excitement of the day, neither of us had even tasted the thing. I slowly rose to my feet and went to open the door. Two uniformed police officers and a guy in a tailored suit were standing on the other side. When I looked up, the suit guy smiled and extended his arm.

"Mr. Davis? My name is Detective Luis Rodriguez, and this is Officer Manning and Farrel. May we come in?"

I shook his hand hesitantly and backed up to let them all in. "Sure. Sure come on in. What's this about?"

After everyone was inside and the door was closed, the uniforms seemed to to relax somewhat, but Detective Rodriguez seemed to remain on edge. "Mr. Davis, we're here in regards to your daughter Isobel. I'm aware that she has been away for the weekend. Any idea when she should be in?"

At the mention of Isobel's name, my entire body tensed up and my heart started a slow, but heavy thud against my chest. Glancing at the time on my wrist watch, I estimated what time Isobel and Bobby should be pulling into the drive. "Well they left around 6am, so they should be here in just under an hour. What's going on here Detective? Is my daughter in some kind of trouble?" I knew it! I knew that her seeing that Bobby was a bad idea. I couldn't believe that I had fallen for his crap about changing his life because he cared for Isobel. He was in some kind of trouble, and now he had dragged my baby into it!

Detective Rodriguez smiled again, but this time it seemed more like a conveyance of pity. He shook his head slightly and straightened his shoulders. "Sir maybe we should wait for your daughter to arrive before discussing this. We don't mind waiting."

My eyes narrowed on him. He didn't want to tell me what was going on, and that just made me want to know all the more urgently. I shook my head in return. "No, I would like to know what kind of trouble my daughter is in!" I insisted.

The look of remorse never leaving his face, he nodded toward the living room and began to walk. "Maybe we should sit down for this Mr. Davis?" He ended with the statement sounding like a question, but I somehow knew that I didn't have a choice. That was an order.

I sat on the edge of my recliner and faced the three cops. The two officers had taken their seats on the sofa, staring blankly into space while the detective remained standing. He cleared his throat several times before speaking.

"Mr. Davis, I have orders to come and question your daughter about events that took place on March the fifth of this year." he began.

I shook my head in confusion. "What events are those?"

He opened his mouth and then hesitated. "Sir, I didn't wish to be the one to tell you this. I would really prefer that we wait for your daughter to be present for this discussion..." he said again.

I shook my head quickly. "No, I want to know what is going on now!" I told him impatiently.

"Well sir, on the March 5, 2011, your daughter was attacked and raped by a man that we only just today discovered the identity of. This man threatened Isobel's life with a knife and proceeded to rape her. There is a strong possibility that she would have been harmed further had Bobby Slade not happened upon the scene to rescue her." He paused to give me an opportunity to take in that information.

I stared at him as I tried to process what he had said, the slow beating of my heart picking up slightly when I registered the words 'attacked' and 'raped' in the beginning of his explanation. "Raped?" I repeated out loud, slowly, my mind buzzing as I tried to grasp everything. At some point in all this, it seemed that my brain had all but shut down, and it was difficult to piece together words and meanings. "Wait, who was raped?"

'Isobel, you idiot! Isobel was raped' I heard my own voice respond to that question in my head. "Wait, Isobel?" I said out loud. "MY Isobel? My daughter was--was raped." I stood up quickly and looked around, pacing to the other side of the room hurriedly before turning and walking back to where the detective was standing. "No, there must be some mistake, Detective. My--my daughter hasn't been raped. I would know that. She would have told me."

Pity still etched across his face, Rodriguez shook his head calmly. He opened his mouth to speak and I put my hand up to silence him. I didn't need to hear his response. Even to my own ears, my words didn't ring true. My daughter had changed a lot over the last month or so, and I had just blamed it all on boys in puberty.

"How--how did this happen? You said you know who did this! Who did this to my daughter?" The beginnings of anger began to furl in my gut, and I clenched my fists until I could feel my nails biting into the skin of my palm.

***

Detective Rodriguez's POV

I watched as Johnathan Davis slowly began to fall apart at the seams. I could only imagine what he was going through. I had a little 10 year old little girl, and I couldn't imagine something like what happened to Isobel Davis happening to her. I would probably murder the bastard who had done it.

"Well sir, footage from a bank's security cameras proves that your daughter's attacker was Chet Peters. He is--was--an officer on the force."

Johnathan had been in the middle of pacing across the room again when my words registered and he froze. "What?!" He yelled, looking accusingly at the officers sitting on his couch. Manning gave him a sympathetic look while Farrell just looked down as if ashamed. I was ashamed too. How could a guy sworn to protect and serve do something like this to a teenage girl. And I had let him slip right out the door this morning to effect his get-away.

I cursed myself for the hundredth time since walking into the office this morning to find the entire station in an uproar searching for the missing officer. It had been Lieutenant Taylor who had informed me of the events that had taken place weeks ago. I had told him about seeing Chet leaving the premises in a hurry and a BOLO had been immediately put into effect. Every cop in the city was looking for Chet Peters. A couple of patrol cops had found Chet's patrol car abandoned off of Lawson Avenue, and Mrs. Peters told us that she had looked out her window at 7:30 this morning to see Chet peeling out of the driveway in his dad's old truck. A truck that I now knew was the same vehicle that had struck Sharon and driven her off the road.

I had quickly pulled Manning and Farrell off of the search and brought them over to keep an eye on Ms. Davis during the search. My instincts told me that the attempt on Sharon's life had been a result of some obsession that Peters had developed for this young girl, and I needed to make certain that he never got close to her.

"I am deeply sorry, sir. The entire station is ashamed of the actions of a fellow officer, and we are doing everything in our power to capture Officer Peters and bring him to justice!" I told him immediately. "There is no excuse for our failure to see what that man was capable of! A person like that should have never been a part the team!" Just as I completed that last sentence, the handle on the door turned and we all turned to see a laughing Isobel Davis enter with a smiling Bobby Slade.

When they noticed us, they froze and I could tell that they immediately picked up on the tension in the room.

Isobel's smile dropped as her eyes met her fathers. "Dad what's going on?"

---------------------- So what did you think? You guys are going to be getting a lot more of Johnathan's POV in the coming chapters as we explore his emotions in reacting to the news that his daughter was raped. How do you guys think Isobel is going to react to the knowledge that almost everyone in Brooks County now knows or is going to know what happened to her? Haha. Just wait for it.

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