Kidnapping on Kaua'i (featured by Wattpad 2014)

Kidnapping on Kaua'i- prologue

Kidnapping on Kaua'i

by Ava Easter

Copyright 2014 by Ava Easter

Prologue

Worry and regret descend on me as I bike home along the red dirt road, racing against the promise of rain from swollen clouds hanging low and heavy over the wind-tossed palms. I know Auntie will be waiting for me on the lānai, the long porch in front of our house, with her arms crossed, tapping her foot in anger at my lateness.

But, when I get home, the lānai is empty.

Strange.

Throwing my bike down, I run up the steps and burst through the front door. Inside, all is quiet. I don't remember this house ever being quiet during all the fourteen years I've lived here. In the looming stillness, the familiar seems suddenly unfamiliar: the kitchen table, its yellow Formica surface still messy with plates, the video game cords strung across the living room floor, the book I'd left lying on the hall shelf, pages down...without my noisy family, they all look strange and somehow lost.

"Auntie?" I call down the empty hallway. My voice rings out like an alarm bell. No answer. I double back to the kitchen and search all surfaces for a note-'gone out for groceries, back in a sec'-or something like that. Nothing. I even lift all the old school papers, receipts and partial newspapers off the counter to peer underneath, just in case. Still nothing. Five more minutes pass before I think of checking the carport in the back of the house for Auntie's car.

Rain has started to fall. Big drops slap my face as I run barefoot around the side of the house. When the makeshift carport comes into view, I skid to a stop in the middle of a mud puddle. Auntie's beige sedan is parked there, with the driver's door wide open. Moving closer, I see Auntie's keys lying on the cracked leather seat. What happened here, I wonder. Had she been taken?

A high-pitched whine escapes from the thicket of ferns on the opposite side of the carport. I jump, ready to run, and then see Nahoa, Auntie's little terrier, creeping out of the ferns with her tail tucked between her legs. She races toward me. As I pick up the whimpering dog and try to comfort her, a bone-weakening fear hits me; Auntie never leaves Nahoa outside alone.

I speed back inside and throw the deadbolt, all while still cradling the dog. My hands shake as I lift our avocado-colored phone off its cradle and make a series of calls to all the places Auntie might be if she was safe. No one has seen her. Finally, I call the police and make a report in a high-pitched, unusually girlish voice, barely able to believe I have to do it.

"So, you don't know how long your aunt has been gone..." the policeman repeats. The line clicks and echoes, like I'm calling from underwater. "Are you sure she isn't just talking to a neighbor?"

I hesitate slightly. "I'm sure."

"Usually, we tell callers to wait forty-eight hours before filing a missing persons report, but since you're a minor, we'll send a car out to check on you. Our staff is stretched pretty thin because of the storm blowing in, so it might be awhile, alright? Hang tight. And give us a call back if she comes walking in the house."

"Okay."

I slide the phone on its cradle and pull myself onto a kitchen stool. The rain is coming down heavy now, thundering in sheets across the roof. Creaky, moaning noises come from outside, and I pray it's just the wind as I wrap my arms around my knees and shiver on the stool. I realize with deadly certainty someone has kidnapped my Auntie, and I'm pretty sure who did it.

I know what I have to do.