Romiette and Julio (20 page)

“I told you about Internet criminals!” Cornell declared angrily.

“Let her finish, Cornell. Go on, Destiny.” One police officer took notes. The other stood by the door and watched the scene silently.

Destiny started to cry. “Ben, you go on. I’m shaking too hard to talk.”

“Julio is no criminal, Mr. C. Romiette and Julio got to talking at school and they kinda liked each other. Julio told me he was lonely and missed his friends at his old school and Romiette was his first real friend here. And me and Julio really hit it off right away.” Ben touched his nose instinctively. “I guess he liked my style.”

“Blue hair, right?” Mrs. Cappelle smiled in spite of herself.

“Sometimes it’s green. Last week it was orange.”

“Get on with the story, Ben,” Mr. Cappelle urged.

“OK. Julio and Romi have been getting hassled at school by these kids that are in the Devildogs.”

“Devildogs?”

“Yeah, this gang at school.”

“What gang? What’s this about a gang?” Cornell asked.

“There’s lots of gangs around here. In our city. In our school. Your news reports are wrong, Mr. Cappelle. You want to know the real deal? Why don’t you ask the kids?”

“You’re right, Ben. We’ll do that. But go on—tell us how all this fits into the story. Where is Romiette?” He wanted to pull his hair out. This seemed to be going so slowly, and Romiette was not sitting in her living room where she was supposed to be.

“Well, I got this Minicam from my dad—it’s like a spy recorder or something—and the plan was that we would secretly tape the Devildogs threatening
Julio and Romiette. Then we were going to turn the tape over to you, Mr. Cappelle, so you could expose them on TV, and that would be the end of that.”

“But that’s so dangerous! What possessed you kids to undertake something so potentially life-threatening?” Cornell was furious.

“Julio wants to be a news cameraman or something. Plus he wanted to show Romi he was brave and would protect her. We figured we could handle it.” The answer sounded stupid to Ben even as he said it.

Destiny tried to help him. “See, Ben and me were supposed to follow behind in his car with a cell phone. And we could call if anything got out of hand.”

“But my car stopped, and we tried to push it, but cars are a lot heavier than they look! By the time we got it started, and we got to the place where Romi and Julio were supposed to be, they were gone!”

“What do you mean
gone?”

“They were only about a block or so ahead of us—walking on the sidewalk that goes past London Woods. We knew they wouldn’t go into the woods because it was getting dark, and we had already talked about that. The plan was to stay where we could see them so nobody could get hurt.”

Destiny couldn’t stop crying. “We looked in the woods anyway and we called and yelled. But they just weren’t there!” She buried her face in her hands and sobbed.

Ben added, “That’s when we called 911. The police officers came, but they didn’t really believe us at first.
It does sound a little suspicious. ‘Our friends are not where they said they would be’ doesn’t sound like a serious problem, but we were really worried.”

Destiny took the tissue Mrs. Cappelle offered and wiped her eyes and nose. “I’m scared, Mrs. C. Something really bad has happened. Romi wouldn’t run off like this, and they’re not in the woods, and the Devildogs have been threatening them ….”

Cornell Cappelle looked directly at the two policemen. “Officers, what do we do now? I want my daughter found!”

“We are starting a full investigation, sir. We will search London Woods and the surrounding areas. Did you kids see any unusual cars or vehicles?”

“No. Nothing. The street was deserted. Just us and the breeze,” Ben said quietly.

“I’m scared, Mrs. C.,” Destiny said again. “I always play around and tell people that I’m psychic, but something tells me something really bad has happened. What are we gonna do?”

“I’ll kill that kid if he’s hurt my daughter!”

Destiny looked surprised. “Julio wouldn’t hurt Romi, Mr. C. He’s crazy about her!”

“Oh, Cornell, what are we going to do?” Mrs. Cappelle went over to her husband and buried her face in his frightened embrace.

“Let’s not throw words like ‘kill’ around, folks,” admonished the policeman with the notepad. “Hold on, I’ve got a call here from dispatch.” He put his walkie-talkie to his ear. “Yeah, Joe? OK. We’ll be right down with the parents of the girl.” He looked
at Romi’s parents. “Mr. and Mrs. Cappelle, Julio’s parents are on their way to the station. They called a few minutes ago to report their son hadn’t come home from school. Ordinarily we wouldn’t worry much about a teenager coming home late from school. But this is different. It seems that your daughter and their son are missing together.”

Romi’s parents held on to each other for a moment, then they hurriedly gathered their things to head to the police station. Mrs. Cappelle looked at Destiny. “Destiny, call your mother right away, and tell her everything. Then go home and stay there. If Romi tries to contact anybody, she’ll call you if she can’t reach us. We’ll call you later and let you know what’s going on. Make sure the door is locked when you leave.” Destiny nodded, still sniffing. “Ben, will your car get her home safely?”

“Yes, ma’am. Turns out it was out of gas. I’ll take her home. And Mrs. Cappelle—I’m really sorry.”

“I know, Ben. Let’s just hope this turns out to be less than what we fear. Good night.” She turned then and walked into the night with the police officers. It had started to rain.

Luis Montague was angry—and afraid. He gripped the steering wheel fiercely and looked straight ahead as he drove to the police station. His wife sat beside him, weeping. They did not speak. The windshield wipers squeaked back and forth as the rain pelted the car.

His thoughts exploded finally. “I told him to leave that girl alone!” he yelled to the sky, to the rain, to his wife. “I warned him about hanging around with those people!”

“Luis, we’re not sure about anything yet. Please don’t jump to conclusions.”

“Don’t tell me how to think!” he roared. Then, softer, he said, “I’m sorry, Maria. I’m just so worried. I can’t believe we’re heading to the police station because our son is missing.”

“Maybe he’s got a good excuse. Maybe we’re overreacting,” she offered, searching for hope. “Are we being foolish?”

“We’ve been over this, Maria. Something is wrong. You were home all day, right?”

“Yes.”

“And Julio didn’t come home from school.”

“Maybe he had band practice or something,” Maria suggested weakly.

“From three o’clock until ten? Not likely. And he hasn’t called?”

“No,” she admitted. “And that’s not like him at all.”

“And did we try to call his friends, what few we know of?” he demanded, trying to make himself understand this terror as well.

“Well, we called that young man, Ben, whom he seems to be quite close to, and there was no answer. And we have called the school, and gone down to the school building to find it locked and dark.”

“So what choice do we have, Maria?” Luis asked in resignation. “The boy loves that puppy and wouldn’t leave it for hours unattended like this. And he knows how you worry about him. He would not do this to his mother. I know my son. Something is wrong.”

“But what makes you think it has something to do with this girl, Luis? I know he really likes her. I could see the glow in his smile when he spoke of her. We had a good talk about his feelings for her.”

“I told him not to get involved with gang kids like that! How dare you encourage him?” Luis asked, his anger returning.

Julio’s mother retorted, “If you wouldn’t yell at him and threaten him, Luis, he might confide in you more!” Luis refused to answer. Maria continued, “And what makes you think she’s involved in a gang?
He would have told me if he even suspected that. He’s been through the pain of gangs back home. He wouldn’t voluntarily jump into those muddy waters again.”

“That’s not what he told me. He defied me and dared me to try to run his life!”

“Perhaps Julio is right, Luis,” his wife said quietly.

“What?”

“Perhaps you should let him make his own decisions, and his own mistakes, just as we did.” She waited for her husband’s stormy reaction. But he was quiet and thoughtful.

“Perhaps so,” he finally said sadly, “but none of this answers the question I want to know most. Where is my son? Where is Julio?”

They pulled into the parking lot of the police station. They got out in the pouring rain and, sharing one umbrella, hurried inside.

The inside of the police station didn’t look anything like the police stations she had seen on TV, Mrs. Montague thought. It had a very small, dimly lit waiting room. The police officer behind the bulletproof glass window looked bored and unconcerned when they walked in out of the rain.

“Excuse me, sir,” began Luis. The words were difficult for him to say. The thought that something might have happened to Julio made the words stick in his mouth. “We wish … we wish to report our son is missing. I called earlier and I was asked to come down here.”

“How old is he?” the officer asked.

“Sixteen,” Mrs. Montague answered.

“How long has he been gone?”

“He didn’t come home from school today, and he has not called. That is not like my son,” she said with assurance.

“Did you have a fight? Is there any reason why he would run away?” Seeing the pained looked on Maria Montague’s face, he added gently, “I’m sorry,
folks. These are routine questions. We need all the information we can get in order to find your son.”

“I understand,” replied Mrs. Montague with dignity. “There has been no fight; well, some minor disagreements, maybe, but my Julio would not run away.”

The officer looked up. “Did you say ‘Julio’? What’s his full name?”

“Julio Leonardo Montague,” his father replied. The officer checked a dispatch paper in front of him. “Would you folks have a seat for just a minute? We had a 911 call earlier today from some kids who mentioned your son’s name. Our captain is on his way here now, and he told me he wanted to speak with you personally.”

Fearing the worst, Mrs. Montague began to weep again. She collapsed in her husband’s arms. “Perhaps he has good news, Maria,” Luis said to her as he tried to comfort her. But he didn’t believe it himself. He too swallowed dread as he waited for the captain to return.

The rain and wind blew harder. The Montagues listened to the rain on the windows as they waited.

Finally, the door blew open, and two police officers and an African-American couple walked in the door. Maria recognized the man right away. He was Cornell Cappelle, the good-looking newsman from Channel Six. She whispered to her husband, “I think those are the parents of the girl.”

Luis also recognized Cappelle. But he showed no sign of acknowledgment or recognition. The mother
had been crying, he could tell, and the father looked as fierce and frightened as Luis himself felt.

The captain checked in at the dispatch desk and glanced over at the Montagues after a word with the officer behind the window. He smiled, and walked over with confidence, his hand outstretched. “Mr. and Mrs. Montague? I’m Bill Escaluski, captain here.”

“Glad to meet you, sir. Do you know anything about my son?” Mrs. Montague wanted to skip the polite nonessentials.

“Not yet, but we’re working on it. Let me introduce you to the other half of this puzzle.” Romi’s mother and father walked over to Julio’s mother and father. “Mr. and Mrs. Cappelle,” he said, “meet Mr. and Mrs. Montague. That’s funny—the Montagues and the Cappelles. I remember those names from high school, or something very close to it—Shakespeare. Enemies, weren’t they? In
Romeo and Juliet.
Even your kids’ names are similar.”

Cornell Cappelle was in no mood for humorous coincidences. “We don’t find anything very funny about this evening.” He looked at Luis Montague with distrust. “If your boy has hurt my child in any way, I swear, I’ll—”

Luis was about to respond angrily, when the captain interrupted. “Right now, folks, we have no proof that anyone has done anything wrong. Both young people may be in grave danger. Let’s see if we can get to the bottom of this together.”

Lady Brianna Cappelle smiled at Maria Montague and offered her hand. Then she said to her husband,
“Cornell, calm down. There’s got to be a logical explanation for all this. I’m sure that the Montagues are just as worried as we are.”

Maria returned her smile. “Thank you, Mrs. Cappelle. Julio is a good boy, a quiet, studious boy who likes music and computers. He would not hurt anyone. My husband is afraid that perhaps by befriending your daughter, his life may have been put in danger.”

“Danger? How? And why, because of our daughter?” Cornell Cappelle bristled at the accusation.

“He hinted to me that he had been threatened at school because of his ethnic heritage and because of his friendship with your daughter. I wish I had paid more attention. As his father, I worry, of course. You understand, don’t you?”

“So there has been trouble at school and at home, am I right, folks?” interjected the captain.

“Not enough for both of them to disappear like this,” retorted Luis. “We left Texas because of this kind of trouble—gangs and such.”

“What kind of trouble, Mr. Montague? What do you mean—gangs?” Cornell asked with defiance. “I heard it was
your
son who was the troublemaker!”

“Quite the contrary,” retorted Luis. “It was gangs. They ruled the schools there. We left Texas to get a new start for our son, a chance for him to grow up independent and safe.”

“Was he in a gang? Is that why there’s trouble now?” Mrs. Cappelle asked.

“No, we think it is your daughter who might be
involved in a gang here. That is why there is trouble. I have seen this before. The girlfriends of the gang boys often help them to target the boys.” Luis refused to budge from his belief. It was the only way he could face this ordeal.