Note that this chapter will be told in a combination of first and third person to facilitate the storytelling.
When Peter saw Jennie she no longer wearing the bright beautiful smile that made her whole face light up. She still looked as beautiful as ever, but now she had a hardness about here. She now carried a determined look. They sat down at their same table and ordered simple cups of coffee with no bells or whistles. There was no frivolity or triviality associated with this meeting. Peter started off by thanking her for coming on such short notice. He started off by saying that he did not want to start their relationship with lies. He also did not want any false pretenses. He had lived his life as best he could with as little personal subterfuge as possible. His work, which he will discuss later did however require this behavior.
“To give you a little heads up, my family has a long tradition of serving in the military. Two of my relatives served in the Civil War, while another rode with Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders. My grandfather fought in three wars and retired as a highly ranked general. My father was a pilot and died from cancer related to exposure to toxic chemicals in Iraq.“
“I would most assuredly have also followed in their footseps if not for the tragedy that struck my family. My father Sam married my mother Tammy in 1985, I was born in 1988. My mother divorced my father in 1992 when she ran away with her boss. When he grew tired of her, he sold her into white slavery and she killed herself in 2012. My father remarried Sakura Ito in 1995. He met her in Japan when he was stationed there. During the time he was overseas, I was raised by my grandfather Gordon and Grandmother Clara on a ranch in Arizona. I loved my life there. However, once my father married my stepmother, he was soon stationed in Washington DC. His wife, their young baby, my half-sister Yua, and her Aunt Ichika moved all followed him to Washington between 1998 and 1999. My father Sam asked me to move in with him because my father wanted us all to be a family again. I agreed to this because I really did miss my father. We were happy during these years, though my father was getting sicker and sicker. In 2000, tragedy struck our family. My sister Yua loved to go to the various city parks that surrounded our apartment. On that particular day, I was sick, so my stepmother Sakura stayed home to care for me. I actually was growing quite fond of her, and I absolutely adored my half sister. We were basically inseparable until the fateful day. Yua would not stop pestering her mother, so finally Ichika agreed to take her to the park by herself. That is when it happened. It was a well orchestrated plan. There was a distraction involving a runaway dog, and Aunt Ichika lost sight of Yua momentarily and that is all it took. She was gone from our lives, never to return to us.”
“My grandfather Gordon poured thousands of dollars and utilized all of his contacts all to no avail. My father Sam died in 2003 of cancer, and my stepmother Sakura died of an accidental drug overdose in 2005. My grandfather Gordon and my grandmother Clara both also died in 2005. Ichika became my family and raised me as best as she could until her life was cut short in 2015 by a drunk driver.”
This is where I stopped narrating my story. This also where I planned on stopping for the day, I figured that Jennie would need time to process what I said before I could go on. When I stopped, I looked up at her, and she was i tears. By the condition of her eyes and complexion, she had been crying for some time. She looked at me, and all she could say was, “You poor, poor man. You have suffered so much loss in such a short period of time. I can’t even begin to imagine what you have been through.” She got up and walked around the table and motioned for me to stand up, and she wrapped her arms around me and just hugged me.
After we hugged for a while, Jennie and I sat back down again. I told her that I would like to meet her back here tomorrow to finish my story, I also asked her if we could reschedule our next date to a later time? She said that would be fine. I told her that if after I finished telling her my story, if she wanted to beak it off, I would understand. She looked at me and said “woah there cowboy, you aren’t getting rid of me that easily.” After I paid the bill and we got up to say our goodbyes, we exchanged a chaste kiss. We looked at each other directly in the eyes and silently said till tomorrow.
That night, Peter tosed and turned until he finally fell in an exhausted sleep. He knew that he should make a call to one of the people on his list, but he frankly did not have the energy to do so. After he got a bite to eat, he took his book and went to the pool and sat down and read most of the morning. He had decided to just bum around for most of the day. The most important order of business was dealing with Jennie and their relationship. If that fell apart, the rest did really not matter very much. If he failed to get her to understand why he did what he did, there was little chance that he would have any better luck with another woman. So he was basically going to have to either reconcile a life built upon loneliness and solitude or the alternative which he dared not think about, and that was suicide. The thought of living a life built on lies was something he could just not contemplate or abide by. It was just as intolerable as a life without love and the companionship of a good woman. He basically wanted to have his cake and eat it, too.
Peter’s day creeped inexorably on until finally it was time to hop in the shower and get ready to see Jennie. Besides the day when he decided to pursue Yua’s kidnappers, this was the second most important day in his life. Depending on how the day went, it would determine the path his life would take until he ceased to exist. I know this sounded a bit melodramatic, but it was the truth at least as far as Peter could see it.
When Peter met Jennie, she kissed him lightly on the cheek before they sat down at their table at the coffee house. Like the day before, they just ordered regular coffee. As a matter of fact, Peter couldn’t even remember if he drank any of his coffee yesterday. The kiss on the cheek did not bode well, and he hoped it was not a portent for things to come.
Peter started without any fanfare. “After my sister Yua was kidnapped, my future was irreversibly altered. I, of course, blamed myself because it I had not gotten sick, and my baby sister Yua would have never been kidnapped. From that day forward, I geared my life to one goal, and that was either to find my sister or catch those responsible for kidnapping her. I spent all my teenage years surfing the net looking for clues and studying various investigative techniques. I graduated from high school in 2006, and I immediately applied to the Metropolitan Police Department Academy. I graduated from ther the following year. I was immediately hired by the Washington DC Metro police department at the age of 19. In 2008, I enrolled at the University of the District of Columbia, where I attained a BA in Criminal Justice. I became a missing person’s detective in 2012 and worked with Detective Gault and FBI Special Agent Pierany, both of whom worked on my sister’s missing person’s case.”
“On that same year, i took some time off from work, and I traveled to Europe. During this time, while at a beach in Istanbul, Turkey, I met a very sick young girl who actually died in my arms shortly after meeting her. I took a great deal of interest in her case. When her body was at the hospital, I asked if the medical attendent could take a buccal swab, so maybe I could track down her relatives. Meanwhile, I paid for her burial. Since I was near the end of my vacation, and frankly I had lost any further interest in travel, I went back home. I want to take a moment to mention that I had inherited half of my Grandfathers estate when my grandparents passed away in 2005. I had since turned that money into a tidy sum, so I was able to afford to help out the young lady with her burial. When I got back to work, I told my boss about the young girl and the DNA sample that I had obtained. He said no problem, so he signed off on having it run. Since he knew my history, he suggested that I submit my own DNA sample. I thought he was crazy, but I went ahead and submitted it. Well, you must have guessed the samples matched . There was no doubt that she was my half-sister. Just to verify it, I also submitted my Aunt Ichika’s DNA sample as well, and of course, there was an even closer match.”
” I contacted the funeral home in Istanbul and made arrangements to have her body moved to the States. My grandfather Gordon had previously purchased a burial plot for the family. All of our recently deceased family members had been buried there, so it only seemed right that Yua was buried there as well by her mother and her father. Yua’s Japanese grandmother Aiko came for the ceremony. Unfortunately, Yua’s grandmother would have to make one more solo trip this time to bury her daughter Ichika in 2015. Tragically Her husband Hiroko had already passed away in 2010. I took a leave of absence from the force and started work as a private detective. During this time, I got a job working with the private agency that my grandfather Gordon had hired back in 2000. I gained valuable skills and contacts working with the agency. I worked on a couple of undercover sting operations in comnjunction with Washington Metro and the FBI missing person’s division. I want you to know that this is just a brief description of what took place during these years.”
“There was finally a breakthrough in the case when one of the child traffickers that transported my sister to Europe was captured in one of the overseas sting operations I was involved with. It turns out that he was a paranoid individual because he kept exhaustive records just in case he was caught. He proved to be a valuable resource in that not only did he remember my sister, but he was able to fill in several of the blanks of her kidnapping and her eventaully being sold to a brothel in Istanbul. It took another year of intensive investigation that I finally had the entire chain of people involved in her kidnapping and, ultimately, her death. Unfortunately, there was simply not enough evidence to prosecute them, or they were just untouchable. So this is when I decided to take matters into my own hands. When in Afghanistan, my father Sam had befriended a Kurdish Mastif named Sarge. One of his offspirngs became my best friend and protector Jojo. He was a 200 lb wrecking ball. I had him specially trained as an attack dog. He died saving my life in a brothel in Cheb, Czech Republic.”
“These people were the worst of the worst they specialized in ruining little girls and boys’ lives, they treated them like pieces of meat. The couple that paid for Yua’s original kidnapping were particularly evil. Not one of them deserved to walk the face of this earth, and the very fact that they shared the air we breathed was an affront to all that is good and holy in this world. I will not beg you for forgiveness, and I have no remorse in the actions I have taken. The justice they received was better than they deserved because they all went left this earth quickly and without pain. You are speaking to a person who single handedly took ten lifes, seven of them were men, and three were women. The women were the most evil of them all because they utilized their sex to entrap and ensnare their victims. Because of my actions, my baby sister Yua has received justice. She died of Aids given to her by the original kinapping couple when the man had sex with her when she was only four years old. I only know bits and pieces of her story, but I know of countless other children that have shared similar fates, so I can only surmise that she did not live a very good life. She was 16 years old when she died in my arms. She had wasted away to nothing, and she could barely breathe. I could hear the rasping she made when she took each tortuted breath. The only thing she wanted to see before she died was to see a sunrise. That is my story. Like I said, I will understand if you want nothing further to do with me. I have made my peace, and when I die, God will decide on where my final resting place will be. All I know is that thanks to my actions, a few more people will be able to walk safely on the earth. There is one final caveat, and that is something you will probably find even worse, and that is I will have to change my identity and move out of this country. There are several people who know I was investigating Yua’s kidnapping, and they are very intelligent people. Even though I was very careful not to leave any evidence behind, they still may decide to come after me. I am in the process of contacting these people. I frankly do not know how they will respond when I tell them what I have done.”
I sat there in silence as Jennie just sat their pale as a ghost, not even moving. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, she spoke in a halting voice. “Peter, I don’t blame you for what you have done, I know you felt justified in your actions. I am frankly not sure how I feel. I am actually kind of numb right now. One thing I know is that I need time to think things through. I am not sure if we have a future or not, but I know one thing if you care anything for me you will give me all the time I need to make up my mind, without any pressure what so ever. I do have feelings for you, and I appreciate your wanting me to know about your past. I want you to know you sure have unloaded a whole lot of shit on me.“
She stood up and started to walk away. At the last moment, she turned around and said in a firm voice. “You will hear from me. You deserve better than to be left, not knowing.” Without any further comment or glance back, she walked out the door.