Night: Kendra and the Dragon's Staircase

Fathers (Scenes 1-5)

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

—Hebrews 11:1

1

To say that they were in trouble was the grossest of understatements. After Mara's destructive outburst and collapse into unconsciousness, Kendra fireman-carried the unconscious girl over her shoulders, while Colbie and Celia cleared out the rubble and exited the old Rancaster district through the huge gash in the wall.

On the other side, SWAT vehicles took up positions along the street, and several SWAT teams formed into ranks and pointed their guns at the girls. Several SWAT members talked into their hand-held radios reporting their findings to the SWAT team leader, Lt. Frank Shaefer, who came forward to see for himself and then called it in to Kendra's stepfather over his radio transceiver when he spotted Kendra and her friends amid the rubble, saying, “Hey, Roy, this is Frank. You’re not gonna believe this, so just get your ass over here,” and gave him the location of the scene and added that he couldn’t miss it if he tried. When asked what was going on, it only took him to mention Kendra and her friends in the same sentence as Mara Cairns for Roy to get his ‘ass over here,’ pronto.

Before Roy’s arrival, Lt. Frank Shaefer radioed all of his teams to stand down and asked for the ambulance team to take the girl to the Nayland Hospital near the Paradise Gardens district. Rifles were lowered, and he walked out into the street and raised his hand at his teams, signaling that the girls before them were not threats.

Kendra gulped and paled at seeing the man all decked out in SWAT gear, helmet, body armor and military boots, and said, "I can explain—"

"Do that later at the Police Station," he said, then looked over at her friends who winced under his gaze. "And that goes for you two, as well. I’ve contacted Roy, and you three will be taken to the Station, while I deal with all this," he added, pointing to the damaged length of wall and other damaged properties around the immediate area.

When the ambulance came, Kendra placed Mara on the gurney, and the medics wheeled the gurney into the back of the ambulance and shut the door and drove off down the street with sirens blaring.

He then led the three girls behind the line of SWAT vehicles, but he waited for Kendra's father to arrive first. All the while, he ordered his SWAT teams to secure the area and set up roadblocks and bring in construction crews to clear out the rubble.

But when they saw cruiser lights flashing up the street, meaning that Roy had arrived, he took Kendra aside and said, "I'm not exactly sure what kind of mess you’ve gotten yourself into, but does it have anything to do with the Cairns case?"

Kendra looked down at her feet, while her friends looked on, and said, "Yeah, it does."

"In that case, I'll try and say something to him before he explodes on you," he said. "Hold tight, miss."

Kendra gave him a weak smile, saying, "Thanks."

When the police cruiser stopped, Detective Roy Dolan stepped out, a tall and clean-shaven man with his normally combed-back hair a bit disheveled.

Lt. Frank Shaefer came up to him and said, “Kendra says it's about the Cairn case, sir."

Roy just stared at his long-time friend and glared at Kendra and her friends, making them flinch where they stood next to one of the SWAT vehicles, then sighed and under his breath, “Dear Christ, those three will be the death of me some day."

“Try not to be too hard on them,” he said.

“I’ll try not to. Carry on, Lieutenant," he said, placing his fingers to his temples to massage away yet another on-coming headache. "I'll take them in and have them questioned. I can already see it's gonna be one of those days!"

"Heh! Good luck on that, sir," Lt. Sheafer said. "Hope the brass doesn't crawl your ass too much!"

"Yeah, yeah, fuck you, too," he said, then walked up to the girls. "You three, get it in the car."

But Kendra said, “Really, I can explain if you—“

"Don't argue! Just get in the car!"

All three girls flinched and followed Roy to the police cruiser, who opened the back door for them and slammed the door shut when they all filed onto the back seat.

All three girls fell silent in that seat, the seat used for apprehending criminals and suspects, and when Roy entered and slammed the door shut and started the ignition, Kendra mouthed at her friends so he wouldn't overhear: "We. Are. Fucked."

Of course, the sharp-eyed Roy saw through the rearview mirror, so he turned around in his seat and said, "That's for your folks to decide. I'll have to explain all this to my superiors, and I'll probably have my ass crawled by the time they pick you up. And as for you, Kendra, you're grounded! So no more phone privileges for a month!"

"But that's not—"

"Quiet!” he said and turned back around in his seat and started the ignition. “And that's on top of what I'll say to you when we get home, so you better get used to it!"

Kendra winced at his words and stayed quiet throughout the ride, while her friends just clammed up and grabbed Kendra's shaking hands on either side of her. No matter how bad it was about to get, Kendra knew that she wasn’t alone in this. Screw up together, suffer together: that's what friends are for.

2

Indeed, upon entering the Missing Persons Office and Inspector Dunham’s office, in particular, Detective Roy Dolan had more than his ‘ass crawled.’ In quite a few tirades of yelling and cursing, Inspector Dunham said that Roy had been taken off the Cairns case starting tomorrow, pending a reprimand and a suspension from the superintendent for causing an “enabler” (Inspector Dunham’s word for Connie Davis) to allow minors to interfere with investigative protocol and administrative procedure to quarantine the old Rancaster district.

After a long diatribe about investigative protocol and administrative procedure and especially about Connie Davis’ involvement in the whole debacle, a fuming Inspector Dunham said, “Do you have anything to say for yourself, detective?”

“Yes, sir,” Roy said, standing behind the chair he was not asked to sit in, and noticed the reddening hue of the inspector’s bald head. “That is, if I’m free to speak, sir.”

The inspector waved his hand, saying, “Go ahead, detective.”

“Connie’s one of my most trusted contacts,” he said. “I’m sure Ronnie and the Larking brothers would hate for me to burn her.”

“Looks like she burned you, first, Roy. She’ll probably get fired from her position at Shad-Row Academy and get her PI license revoked for her actions,” the inspector said, then in a softer voice: “Look, I’m sure you didn’t intend for things to happen like this, but revealing police protocols on an active investigation to an outsider (even for a second opinion) carries some serious administrative consequences.”

“Steve’s gonna vouch for her,” Roy said.

“Whatever Steve does at the Phantom Office is his decision, not mine or not yours,” Inspector Dunham said. “Right now, I’m just trying to get the superintendent off my back.”

“I know, but—”

“No ‘but’s, detective,” Inspector Dunham said. “I’ve already got the superintendent breathing down my neck because of all of this. And since a Phantom Office PI enabled three minors to interfere with the superintendent's administrative quarantine of the Rancaster district in connection with the Cairn case, I’ll have your case transferred to the Phantom Office, and Steve will deal with it.”

“I see,” Roy said and paused for a spell, then: “How long is the suspension?”

“For as long as the case is still open,” Inspector Dunham said. “The superintendent doesn’t want you anywhere near this case.”

“Starting tomorrow?” he said.

Inspector Dunham nodded, saying, “Starting tomorrow, yes, pending a reprimand, of course.”

“Jesus, man, I know!” Roy said. “But what the hell am I supposed to do till then?”

“You figure it out,” Inspector Dunham said, then paused for a moment. “Look, for what it’s worth, and this is off the record, each of those three girls should be awarded a medal. Honestly, what they did today was a fucking miracle. We wouldn’t have found the Cairns twins without them, so don’t be too hard on Kendra, okay?”

“I know,” Roy said, “and I’ll try, sir.”

“All right,” he said. “Get out of my hair.”

But Roy had the last jab, saying, “You don’t have hair, sir,” and left the inspector’s office.

After his dismissal, Roy doubled back through the side hall of the Missing Persons Office into another hall where the interrogation rooms were and talked with another officer in charge of questioning Kendra and her friends about today’s events in the next ten minutes. After that, he exited the Police Station through the back doors, avoiding Kendra’s line of sight as she was talking to her friends in the lobby area, and looped around the building along the sidewalk looking for his car. When he spotted it, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his smartphone and dialed the number for Inspector Stephen Larking of the Phantom Office and waited for him to pick up.

When nobody did, Roy received an automated voice message, saying, “This is the office of Inspector Stephen Larking of the Phantom Office. I’m sorry for not taking your call at this time, but you can leave your name and phone number and your reason for calling after this message.”

The message beeped.

“Hey, Steve. This is Roy,” he said, fishing out his key ring, and approached his car and unlocked it. “Bad news, man. I’ve been debarred from this case starting tomorrow, so I’ll try to get everything set up at the hotels and the drop zones before daylight. Over and out.”

He pocketed his phone and opened the door, then climbed into the driver’s seat and started the ignition.

3

Upon listening to the news broadcast on the overhead TV during her shift break with her colleague, Connie Davis stood up from her seat at the mention of Mara Cairns’ rescue from the old Rancaster district. The news reporter said that three unnamed minors had infiltrated the old Rancaster district moments before the superintendent of the Larking Metropolitan Police Department could enact the quarantine over it, trapping them inside once the quarantine took effect. The picture then changed to an on-site still image of the shattered wall.

“Are you fucking serious?” Connie said.

“What’s wrong?” her colleague said.

Connie gulped, ignoring her colleague’s question, and took up the remote and increased the volume, so her disbelieving ears could hear better.

The reporter said, “. . . but in a miraculous twist of fate, those three girls not only managed to locate the missing Cairn twins, but they were even seen taking Mara Cairns to safety outside the district’s perimeter.”

Then the picture changed to Lt. Frank Shaefer, saying, “I couldn’t believe it when I saw them with Mara Cairns. It was almost like watching a movie.”

Then it switched back to the reporter, who said, “The LMPD has since retrieved the body of the other twin, Nico Cairns, and put it into a cold storage unit at the morgue an hour ago. As for Mara Cairns, she was taken to the Nayland Hospital, where . . .”

“I have to go,” Connie said.

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“Go where?” her colleague said.

“To the hospital,” she said, taking her jacket off of the backrest of her chair and putting it on. “Cover for me, okay? I’ll make it up to you later.”

“Why are you going there?” her colleague said.

“Just cover for me,” she said, and headed straight for the door, “and don’t tell anyone about this, okay?”

“But why? Are you . . .” Her colleague’s words drifted off, but then she said, “Are your girls involved in this?”

Connie wheeled around and pulled her fingers across her lips as if she were pulling a zipper and said, “Don’t tell anyone about this, got it? I’m begging you, please!”

“All right, all right,” she said, “but what do I say if the doctor comes in?”

“Just make shit up,” Connie said, then crossed the threshold. “I’m depending on you,” she added as she footed it down the hall towards the exit.

4

When the nurse overlooking Mara Cairns had informed him of the girl’s condition, saying that she had five bloody indentations on her stomach, Detective Roy Dolan asked to see the girl in person. When asked why, he just said that he wanted to see for himself what those indentations looked like.

The nurse paused for a moment, then said, “Why?”

“Her case is pending a transfer to the Phantom Office,” he said. “I need to see for myself what has been done to her before I release her case to them.”

Again, the nurse paused, then nodded and allowed him through the door but said, “If anyone catches you, don’t tell them I was with you, okay?”

“Don’t worry. I won’t tell,” he said, and with the nurse walking off, he approached Mara’s bedside and noticed her hospital gown bleeding through with blood. He raised her hospital gown past her stomach and saw those bloody indentations on her skin. “Ah, Christ! Please don’t tell me it’s a blood seal.” He lowered the hospital gown and looked at the girl’s face, a portrait of a peaceful night’s sleep, and said, “What the hell happened to you?”

He turned to go and exited the hospital room when he spotted Connie Davis running up the hall towards him, who said, “Roy, is she in there?”

“Yeah,” he said, but he stretched his arm across the door jamb, “but why are you here?”

“I’m here to see Mara,” she said.

“No, you’re not,” he said.

“But . . . Why?” she said, looking past him to Mara’s bedside. “You might need—”

“I’ve been suspended, Connie,” he said, “and my case is being transferred to the Phantom Office. Starting tomorrow, I’m officially debarred from this case, so I won’t be the one to close it anymore.”

Connie cupped her hands over her gaping mouth, saying, “Oh my God, Roy, I’m so sorry! If there’s anything I can do to make it up to you, anything at all—”

“How the hell are you gonna do that?” he said, then cut himself off when he noticed some of the staff nurses approaching them, telling them to take their conversation to the waiting area, because they were disturbing the patients nearby.

He and Connie apologized and walked down the corridors to the waiting area in silence, till he said, “Inspector Dunham knows what you did.”

“What?” she said. “Are you kidding me?”

“I’m not,” he said, then halted in the middle of the corridor, stopping Connie’s steps.

“I’m in a lot of trouble, aren’t I?” she said.

“That’s an understatement,” he said, then paused to reflect on his next words, “but tell me one thing. Why did you let them go through with it?”

Connie averted her gaze from him, pausing for some moments as tears began trailing her cheeks, and said, “Because I believed in them, but I . . . I should’ve stopped them. I should’ve . . . I . . . I . . .”

Connie had lost her words, so Roy hugged Connie close, cupping his hand against her back and letting her cry over his shoulder, saying, “I know you’re sorry, but I need you to be strong for them. Promise me you’ll be there for them, and I’ll be here for you. Okay? Promise?”

She nodded her head, still crying into his shoulder.

5

After promising Connie that he wasn’t angry, Roy waved her goodbye and got back in the car, backing out the parking space and waiting for cars to pass by before entering the street on his way back to the Police Station. After greeting the station guard and parking his car, he fished out his smartphone and called Colbie’s mother on her phone and informed her that her daughter was at the Police Station. Then he called Celia’s older sisters, but when neither of them picked up, he left voice mail messages informing them that Celia was at the Police Station.

After that, he got out of his car and glided through the front entrance, passed the receptionist, and entered the hallway leading into the interrogation rooms where Kendra and Celia and Colbie had just finished signing their witness statements and asked the officer in charge if they were free to go. The officer said they were, so Roy led them through the hallway and asked them if they needed to see a doctor. All three of them said no, so he shuffled them off to a row of seats in the lobby and informed them that Colbie’s mother and Celia’s sisters will pick them up in the latter part of the afternoon, then told Kendra to wait for his shift to end.

He then headed towards the receptionist and said, “Can you keep an eye on them for me?”

“Sure can,” the receptionist said.

“Thanks,” he said, yet just before he headed back into the hallway towards the offices of the SWAT Unit to look for Lt. Shaefer, he heard Mrs. Amame blustering into the lobby like a whirlwind, swirling air currents all around the waiting area, scattering loose sheets of paper all over the place, and causing those waiting in handcuffs to look over at the ruckus and cower in fear at the smartly dressed lady in high heels and mid-thigh skirt and office jacket, her long locks still swirling in the residual wind.

If looks could kill, Mrs. Amame was Death itself after a bad day at the office looking for a poor neophyte to grill in her backyard. If moods could swing, she was a hurricane stuffed inside a bottle waiting to be opened by a certain girl somewhere on the premises of this lobby. In fact, the woman all but gutted the place with her gaze when she spotted Colbie cowering in her chair with her friends, staring down at the floor, not daring to look her way, probably thinking sunny thoughts on her way to the slaughterhouse.

"There you are," Mrs. Amame said, storming her way towards her miscreant daughter and glowering over her, arms akimbo. "You and I are gonna talk when we get home!"

"I didn't do anything bad, okay?" she said, while her friends sat stock-still, sweating on either side of Colbie and avoiding her mother's gaze of death.

"Then why did I get a phone call from Detective Dolan, hmmmmm?" Mrs. Amame said, but it wasn't really a question; it was more like a veiled threat pending a forced confession of the verbal kind.

Colbie stayed mute where she sat between her friends, sweating more the longer her mother kept her glare on her.

At this, Roy came up to her, saying, "Mrs. Amame, I talked to you earlier."

"Oh! I hope it's not anything serious, detective."

"No, it's not," he said. "She got off with a warning. Same thing with Celia and Kendra.”

At this, Mrs. Amame breathed a sigh of relief and said, "What happened?"

Detective Dolan paused, giving it some thought on how to phrase it, and said, "You’ve heard that we found the bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Cairns earlier today?"

She glanced at her daughter and said, "Yes, I've heard."

“These three found Mara Cairns alive in the Rancaster district,” he said, deciding against telling her about the blood seal he found on Mara Cairns’ body. “She was taken to the hospital before I arrived at the scene, but she's in stable condition when I looked in on her.”

"What about her sister? Is she still missing?"

Detective Dolan paused and stared at his feet for a moment, then said, "We recovered her body an hour ago, and these three helped us pinpoint her location in the same district. I'll admit that what they did was reckless, but we wouldn't have been able to find her body if it hadn't been for them."

Mrs. Amame put a hand to her mouth, gaping at the information Kendra's father had given her. She then looked at the three sitting girls and said, "Are you three all right?" She then looked at Celia and added, "Do you want me to call your parents?"

"My sisters will pick me up," Celia said.

“Where are your parents?”

“Dad's with the publisher,” Celia said, “and Mom's at a dig site, so they're busy right now.”

Only then did Mrs. Amame notice her bandaged hand. "What happened to your hand?"

"I used one of my grandma’s spells to locate the Cairns sisters, but I'll be okay.”

"Geez, girls," Mrs. Amame said, lowering herself to the girls' level on their chairs. "What could've possessed you to risk your lives like that?"

"But we had to, Mom," Colbie said. "Now that Mara's whole family's gone, she needs us."

Mrs. Amame looked back at Roy.

“Don’t doubt her, Mrs. Amame,” he said.

So Mrs. Cairns refrained from causing her daughter further grief. Besides, no matter how reckless she had been, Roy thought to himself, even if Colbie had been his own stepdaughter, he would never doubt her intentions when it came to doing the right thing, and he hoped Mrs. Amame wouldn’t lose sight of that.

A moment later, Celia's older sisters came into the waiting area and saw Mrs. Amame with the three girls and waved at her. Mrs. Amame walked up to them and explained the situation with Celia's sisters, and both sisters looked over at Celia's bandaged hand with something resembling concern on their faces.

Watching all of this from the sidelines, Roy couldn't help but smile, even when Kendra herself had no say in this exchange. From what his colleagues and supervisor said about their actions and from his own observations, Detective Sergeant Roy Dolan couldn’t stop thinking about his tenure as a rookie cop eleven years ago with his old partner, Edmund Tellerman, Kendra's real father. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he felt that he understood Kendra Tellerman a little better today through the actions of her friends, for real friends always had your back. As such, if Roy was going to fill that role of surrogate father to his former partner's daughter, he'd have to be his own man and be a good stepfather in his own way.

Tsuzuku

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