Chapter 27 #2
It took Paul’s cousin an interminable amount of time to get to us, and when she did, she didn’t immediately tell us what her colleague had said about Channing.
Everyone ate, even Harabeoji, but I couldn’t.
Ames had brought cardboard cartons filled with fried chicken.
They smelled good. I sat on my hands. Suddenly panic took hold of me.
Where were Edison and Austin? Why didn’t I see them at the table?
And then I remembered I wasn’t responsible for them anymore.
I turned to Ames. “Why are they holding Channing?”
“It’s Kent,” she said as she put a piece of chicken on her plate. “No official charge yet.” She had held up her fingers in air quotes around “official.”
“He’s accusing Channing of theft and assault. He says she stole a fifty-thousand-dollar watch the night of the party,” she finished.
I asked her to repeat herself which she did.
Harabeoji had put his chopsticks down. He’d managed somehow to eat the chicken wing without using his fingers.
She went on to explain that Kent had turned his back on Channing in his room for a few minutes during the tour he was giving her the night of his housewarming party and then found her touching his watch collection.
When he confronted her, she fled. He discovered later that his Patek Philippe was missing.
Ames inspected the wings in the box in front of her, chose a piece, then brought it to her mouth.
“I hate him,” I said so loudly that she dropped the piece of chicken.
The Yuns looked uncomfortably down at their plates.
“Makes no sense to me. Why would she do that if he walked in on her?” Paul said.
“Because he assaulted her,” I replied.
“When did he do that exactly, because he says she attacked him,” Ames said, wiping her fingers on a napkin. She didn’t seem bothered by my revelation in the least.
“Wait, you didn’t say that!” I said.
“When he confronted her, she shoved him and then fled,” Ames replied in a calm voice. “Sorry, forgot that detail.”
“He forced himself on her. We have a witness. My grandfather walked in on them,” I said. “Tell them,” I said to Harabeoji.
He looked shocked, and it took him a moment to respond. “I didn’t know he’d—Dahee, what did Kent do to Channing?”
“He grabbed her and put his mouth on hers,” I said. “He wouldn’t let her out of that room. You interrupted Kent when you knocked, so she was able to get away. He had her pinned until you came in.”
There was silence.
And then Harabeoji said, “I thought I’d stopped him from doing anything, I had no idea he’d actually hurt her.”
Mrs. Yun picked up her plate and walked to the sink. Mr. Yun said, “You kept anything worse from happening. Look, it’s a kiss; that’s not assault.”
I got to my feet. I wanted to scream at him, Would you stand for that? Having someone grab you and thrust their mouth against yours?
Harabeoji cleared his throat and patted my hand. I bit my lip and sat back down.
“It’s definitely assault,” Paul said to his grandfather. “He grabbed her, wouldn’t let her leave. That’s not borderline. What are you talking about?”
I said to Mrs. Yun, in case she was as clueless as her husband. “It’s not a kiss by any definition of the word.”
“Okay, let’s focus,” Ames said. “Listen, Dahee. It’s good your grandfather walked in on them.
But Kent has a witness, too. After we left the party, Buzz Harper—” She looked from me to Harabeoji.
“He’s the chief of police who was at the party that night.
Kent showed Buzz his watch collection and noticed one of them missing. He reported it that night.”
“He’s not a witness. He didn’t see Channing take the watch,” I said.
Harabeoji coughed into his handkerchief.
“Did you hear what I said? The chief of police is backing Kent’s story,” Ames said.
“That’s why the police arrested her?” I asked.
She nodded. “They were already on their way to Jutting Rock to question her when she called them about the missing kid.”
“How did they know she was there?” I asked. “Why do they believe Kent?” I didn’t know how to handle this news and sat numbly there for several minutes.
“I’ll look through Channing’s bags and see if a watch dropped in there accidentally,” Harabeoji said. Clearly, he couldn’t accept it either.
Mr. Yun agreed it was possible and added, “It’s a misunderstanding, an accident.”
My head felt like it was going to explode from the absurdity of the situation.
I couldn’t believe Kent would lie with such impunity and that the head of police would protect him.
This man must not know Kent’s capabilities.
What was Kent’s motive? He’d already attacked her.
What was the point of accusing her of stealing?
The depths that Kent would go made no sense to me.
I watched the white ceiling fan in the Yuns’ kitchen go round and round.
And then I remembered Channing’s words the night the police came to Sandpiper Lane.
She’d said this town had its own rules. And then I understood: Kent meant to punish Channing for rejecting him.
I ran upstairs to get my car keys. The fastest route to my car was through the front door and out to the driveway.
There was a wooden banister alongside three steps, and I nearly fell, forgetting those steps were there as I ran out, so I grabbed it to keep from landing flat on my face.
A splinter sliced into the palm of my hand, but I didn’t care.
I kept going. In my head, I kept repeating Channing’s in jail.
It was a scene out of the “Tale of Chunhyang.” Kent was going to keep her there.
I wouldn’t accept it. My mouth was still open, unable literally to swallow this truth.
My hand throbbed from the splinter. I got behind the wheel and reversed faster than I intended down the driveway. Slow down, I told myself, but I had to move, run, this was a nightmare, a terrible, terrible dream. I had to wake up.
“This is not the story,” I said aloud.