Chapter 20

"Oh great did Brian disappear too?" mumbled AJ who sat in an orange chair drinking cold coffee.

"Shut up AJ!" Kevin nearly screamed. "I can't find Bri anywhere! But I did find this" he said as he handed the cell phone to Howie.

"Are you sure this is Bri's phone Kev?" Howie asked as he turned the phone over.

"It has the first few digits of AJ's cell phone number on the display window." Kevin explained.

AJ's curiosity rose as he heard his name and he approached his older band mates. "What about me?" AJ asked

"This phone Kev found has the first few digits of your cell phone number in the display window." Howie explained.

"Oh" AJ said, at a loss for words.

"Are you sure this is Bri's though Kev? I mean absolutely sure?" Howie asked.

"Not one hundred percent sure" admitted Kevin "But I know one way to find out for sure." He said as he grabbed the cell phone out of Howie's hand and pushed a button to activate the numbers stored in the phone's memory. "It is Bri's phone." He whispered, "This is his parents phone number. And this" he said as he pushed the down arrow key "Is his brother's phone number."

"What should we do?" Kevin said with a lost look in his eyes.

"Let's first contact the police and tell them what happened and then we go from there." Howie stated logically.

Kevin nodded in agreement and walked over towards the couch where his cousin's book bag lay. He picked up the book bag and sat down putting the book bag in his lap. As Howie and AJ both watched curiously, Kevin unzipped the book bag and pulled out a blue book bag. Using the book bag as a table, Kevin sat the notebook on top and opened it up quickly scanning the top of the pages for the dates of the entries. Even though he felt a pang of guilt go through him with each page he hesitantly turned, he kept telling himself that something written on the pages could give him information to save his cousin. He suddenly stopped on a page and read silently as Howie and AJ watched curiously, wondering what information Brian's journal could posses that could be of this much interest.

"Oh my god" Kevin whispered fearfully.

"What is it?!?" Both AJ and Howie exclaimed as they both walked to Kevin's side.

Without a word Kevin handed the notebook to Howie and buried his head in his hands as AJ looked over Howie's shoulder to also read the journal entry.

"You mean he witnessed a murder?" AJ nearly yelled.

"AJ shut up!" Howie hissed. "This sounds like it is the same murder that we seen the news report about earlier." Howie said thoughtfully.

"Oh great! Just great!" Kevin moaned. "It is after 11:30 and he hasn't taken his meds. God only knows where he is now! And he witnessed a murder and is missing. Oh yeah and Nick is in the hospital fighting for his life! I can't take much more of this!" he said loudly, his voice rising in volume with every word he said.

"Kev just calm down. Having a mental breakdown on us isn't going to help the situation. I'm going to call the police and see what they say about this ok?" Howie asked, silently hoping and praying that Kev would go along with his plane. He sighed in relief when he realized that Kevin finally seemed to calm down.

Kevin just nodded in response and Howie pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and pushed "0" to ask the operator to connect him to the local police station. After a few moments, the operator kindly connected Howie and he waited impatiently as the phone kept ringing. After the 7th ring, how was about to hang up, but someone picked up.

"Officer Daniels speaking how may I help you?" the voice on the other end greeted.

Howie sighed in relief and explained to the officer the situation of Brian's disappearance. The officer listened patiently and told Howie to sit tight, that he would come to the hospital to see what was going on. Howie thanked the officer and hung up the phone, turning around in the process and was greeted by AJ and Kevin's curious glances.

"The officer said he would be here in a few minutes and for us to sit tight until he gets here." Howie explained

Both Kevin and AJ sighed and turned their attention towards the wall, which for some reason seemed very interesting to them at the moment.

All three young men nearly jumped out of their seats when they heard a voice from the doorway say, "Hello gentlemen"