Disclaimer: Jess, Rob and the motorcycle belong to Meg Cabot and various publishers around the world.
A/N: In response to Suze's question about who called the Mastrianis and Mary Wilkins: "I imagine the police officer told you what happened?" – chapter 2. So the answer is (to the best of their knowledge) the police called… But more of that in this chapter.
Chapter four: The Briefing
"What do you mean, they haven't been admitted for several months?" screeched a somewhat hysterical Antonia Mastriani, while Mary Wilkins echoed "several months?" with a tinge of panic in her voice.
Joe Mastriani, meanwhile, although appearing calm on the outside, began babbling about doctors and policemen. As Special Agent Smith held up her hand for quiet her partner, Allan Johnson, came striding through the double doors cradling his bandaged right hand. Despite his apparent pain he immediately took charge of the situation, shouting down the families and turning to his colleague for an explanation.
As Jill recounted the story as she knew it to Allan his expression grew more and more concerned. As she explained about the hospital records he turned back around to speak to the receptionist. By this point the woman in charge of the emergency room had been paged about the fact that they were apparently missing two patients and came barreling through the doors to try and sort it out. With her help the Feds discovered that all patient's details were logged into the computer systems within an hour of arrival and that since their families had been called they must have been identified. Therefore there was only one explanation: the two had never been admitted.
"What about the doctors then?" demanded Special Agent Smith, who seemed to be taking their lack of progress somewhat personally. There was some conferring and consultation of staff rotas, the conclusion being that the only doctors on duty tonight were Dr Thompkins and Dr Levine. Having confirmed that it had not been either of these men that had treated the teenagers, Allan pulled Jill out of the family room they had been shown to and said, "right, you keep them calm, tell them we think the pair might have been kidnapped, I'll call Krantz."
Twenty minutes later the parents were being ushered in to a large conference room around which several FBI agents from the Department of Paranormal Investigations, including Dr krantz, were already seated.
"Hello Mr. and Mrs. Mastriani, Mrs. Wilkins," began Krantz. "I've heard the basic story from Special Agent Johnson. Could one of you please tell me exactly what happened?"
Joe Mastriani began. "We were all at Joe's. Mary was working the afternoon shift and Toni and I had to go in because several members of staff had called to say they couldn't make it. About half past three a policeman came in, which isn't particularly unusual – that's their shift change. But I didn't recognize him as one of our regulars and then he asked to see the three of us somewhere private. We went back to the office and he sat us down and he said, he said that Jess and Rob had been riding on Rob's bike and that a van had pulled out in front of them. That Rob had lost control of the bike and they had both been thrown clear. He told us that they were in hospital and took us to the emergency room in an unmarked car. It was dark blue but I didn't really register anything else about it. When we got there the woman at the desk didn't seem to know who we were talking about, but a doctor came out and told us that they were both in surgery. After that we had to wait for quite a while and … well I'm sure you know the whole story from then on.
Dr Krantz nodded and said "thank you" very quietly. "I can assure you that we will do everything possible to track down Jessica and Robert but at the moment our main problem is that we don't know anything. We have established from a witness that the accident did indeed take place and that the driver of the van claimed to have called the police and the ambulance from his cell phone. Unfortunately there is no trace to be found from the accident."
At this moment an agent came rushing in looking rather flustered and whispered something in Krantz's ear. The normally unflappable doctor turned a funny ashen colour and then stood up, announcing "well, ladies and gentlemen, it would appear we now have a chief suspect. Jim Henderson was accidentally released from jail last night."
A/N 2: Totally meant to post this on Tuesday, but we had our senior prom (yes, I'm a wierd British person) on Wednesday night and I got slightly side tracked. It finished at half past midnight on Thursday morning and then a post prom party went on until 7am. I got about three hours of sleep even though we got the first two periods off school.