Chapter 12            By 9 PM Janet was all too well reminded of the reasons she didn't miss having Axel
     in her life-- the bad manners, the degrading looks, the way he punctuated each
     sentence with a useless grunting noise. And this night looked like it had a long
     way to go. Axel had just pulled into... a bowling alley?
         "Ready for some real fun?" He chuckled, cracking his knuckles.
         Then Janet had an idea. "You know, Axel, Trevor's surely going to be wondering
     why he hasn't heard from me today. How about if I give him a call?"
         He looked over at her suspiciously.
         "That is," she added, "if it's okay with you."
         "Tell you what," he said, grabbing a pen and envelope from the dashboard. "You
     can call him if you read... this."
         She looked over what he handed her. Much as she wanted to laugh in his face,
     she knew he was serious. Delusional, but serious. "What's this word right here?" she
     asked, pointing.
         "Uh... destiny," he said proudly.
         "You wrote 'density' and you spelled it d-e-n-c-i-t-e-e!"
         "Look, Miss High and Mighty," he snarled, getting testy again. "No one asked you
     to grade the note. Just read it."          Trevor sat alone, for once, in the usually bustling Dillon living room. He'd been
     racking his brain, making a list of places Axel could have taken Janet to. Or places
     she might just be on her own, though those had all but run out. Staring at the
     picture taken of all 4 of them at Christmastime, he felt his eyes misting over. "Hang
     in there, Gorgeous," he whispered, tracing her face on the photo.
         Tim and Belinda came in the door, and he did away with the tears in one quick
     swipe. "Is Amanda all settled in now?" he asked.
         "Yep. Hayley was playing Chutes and Ladders with her in no time," Tim told him.
     "And... Belinda let me drive home."
         "He did a good job, too," she reported.
         "That's good... good, Tim," Trevor said, barely listening.
         Belinda and Tim exchanged worried looks. "Any news?" Belinda asked. Trevor
     shook his head.
         "But-- Derek's gonna be here any minute, right?"
         "Yeah, Tim... we're setting up a phone tap, just in case they call." Trevor set the
     photo back on the desk. "You think Amanda's clued in yet?"
         "Well, she was getting a little curious, but I think we convinced her it's all in the
     name of a great birthday party."
         "Good." The phone rang, and Trevor couldn't pick it up fast enough. "Yeah, Dillon
     here."
         Hearing his voice warmed her to the bone, so much that Janet briefly forgot the
     script Axel had written. "Hey," she smiled into the phone.
         Belinda and Tim nearly pounced on Trevor when it appeared his phone
     conversation had ended. "So that was Janet?" "Has Axel really kidnapped her?"
     "How did she sound?" "He actually let her call you?" "What did she say?"
         Oblivious to the barrage of questions for the time being, Trevor hung up the
     phone and worked his face into an exceptional look of puzzlement. "A BOWLING
     ALLEY??" he asked to no one in particular.      Janet winced at the pair of shoes Axel had just dropped alongside her. It wasn't      that she hated the sport-- she and Amanda had gone bowling several times-- it
     was the situation, of course. How had she gone from discussing bands vs. DJ's with
     her fiancee one night to sitting in a bowling alley 2 hours from home, still in her
     work clothes, held at gunpoint by an amazingly clueless ex-husband? And
     relieved as she was by Trevor's attempts to reassure her that help was on the way,
     she knew the information she'd managed to sneak past gatekeeper Axel would
     only get them so far.
         "Hey Jan Jan," Axel called from the score table, interrupting her thoughts.
     "Remember how I used to score twice as many points as you when we did this?
     Well... I've gotten even better!"
         "You don't say."
         "Watch this!" As he wound up and pitched one down the lane, Janet realized
     that every time he was to do so, his attention would be diverted. Quickly she
     reached forward and snatched a miniature pencil from the score table.
         "Well I'll be damned... thought that was a strike for sure." He turned back to her
     and smiled crookedly as he waited for the ball the return unaware that she'd
     even budged. "I'll pick up the spare-- you'll see."
         "I'm sure you will," she said with a tight smile, stunned at how much she'd just
     sounded like the submissive, dowdy Janet of older times. As he turned his back
     again, she reached in her blazer pocket and pulled out the envelope containing
     the script she'd read earlier to Trevor. Searching for a scrap of paper within it, she
     noticed something else that could prove useful: his address on the front of the
     envelope. She looked up just before his bowling ball smacked against the back
     wall without hitting a single pin. The envelope slipped back into the pocket, as
     did the pencil.
         "Your turn, baby," he said, frowning at his performance. She stood up, her
     white collar fashion sticking out like a sore thumb in a sea of flannel shirted factory
     workers and their families. Her mind whirred into overdrive as she got in place.
     Surely someone around there would help her, if only she could get their attention
     without attracting Axel's.
          Re-view Chapters 1/ 2/ 3/ 4/ 5/ 6/ 7/ 8/ 9/ 10/ 11/ 12/ 13/ 14/ 15/ 16/ 17/ 18/ 19/ 20/ 21