{"id":925,"date":"2026-04-18T09:05:35","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T09:05:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/?p=925"},"modified":"2026-04-18T09:05:35","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T09:05:35","slug":"i-was-600-miles-away-my-son-was-alone-what-my-sister-found-changed-everything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/?p=925","title":{"rendered":"I WAS 600 MILES AWAY. MY SON WAS ALONE. WHAT MY SISTER FOUND CHANGED EVERYTHING"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cMr. Merrill?\u201d A woman\u2019s voice, strained and hovering on the edge of a panic she was trying to mask with professional distance.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cSpeaking. Who is this?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cThis is\u00a0<\/span>Carmen Ryan<\/span><\/strong>, Danny\u2019s teacher at\u00a0<\/span>Riverside Elementary<\/span><\/strong>. I\u2019m so sorry to call this late, but your son\u2026 he showed up at the school about twenty minutes ago.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The world didn\u2019t just stop; it fractured. \u201cWhat? That\u2019s impossible. School ended eight hours ago. He should be home with his mother.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cSir, I understand, but he\u2019s here. He was banging on the front doors. The night custodian heard him and called me. Mr. Merrill\u2026 Danny is barefoot. He\u2019s shaking. He won\u2019t tell us what happened. He won\u2019t speak at all. And his shirt\u2026\u201d She paused, a heavy, jagged silence. \u201cHis shirt is covered in something red. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s blood, but I can\u2019t be certain. He\u2019s terrified.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

A cold nausea, acidic and unrelenting, coiled in my gut. I wasn\u2019t just James Merrill, the businessman, anymore. I was a father whose world had just caught fire. \u201cIs he hurt? Have you called the police?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe doesn\u2019t appear physically injured, but he\u2019s clearly traumatized. I wanted to contact you first. I\u2019ve been trying to reach your wife for the past forty minutes. Her phone goes straight to voicemail.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cKeep him safe,\u201d I whispered, my voice sounding like it belonged to a stranger. \u201cI\u2019m calling her now.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I dialed\u00a0<\/span>Joselyn<\/span><\/strong>. Voicemail. I tried again. Voicemail. Each ring was a hammer blow against my heart. I called her best friend, the gym she frequented, her mother\u2014nothing but the hollow hum of a disconnected life. Finally, out of sheer desperation, I called my father-in-law,\u00a0<\/span>Leonard Klene<\/span><\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Leonard answered on the first ring, his voice crisp, alert, and entirely devoid of the warmth one expects at 10:00 p.m. \u201cJames, what is it?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cLeonard. Danny\u2019s at his school. Something happened. He\u2019s traumatized and I can\u2019t reach Joselyn. Have you seen her? Do you know what\u2019s going on at the house?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

There was a long pause. Too long. A silence that tasted like complicity.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNot my responsibility, James,\u201d Leonard said, his tone as flat as a gravestone.<\/span><\/p>\n

The line went dead.<\/span><\/p>\n

I stared at the phone in the dim hallway, the humming lights overhead sounding like a funeral dirge. I realized in that moment that I wasn\u2019t just dealing with an accident. I was dealing with a betrayal so deep it had its own gravity.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The flight from\u00a0<\/span>Phoenix<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0was grounded by a freak storm system, a 72-hour nightmare that left me pacing the terminal like a caged animal. My sister,\u00a0<\/span>Elena Merrill<\/span><\/strong>, had driven two hours from\u00a0<\/span>Salem<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0to rescue Danny. She was my only anchor.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cJimmy, he\u2019s safe with me,\u201d she texted me at midnight on Friday. \u201cHe still won\u2019t speak, but he\u2019s holding my hand. We\u2019re going to my house.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

By the time I touched down in\u00a0<\/span>Portland<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0on Sunday afternoon, I was a ghost of a man. I drove straight to Elena\u2019s modest craftsman home. She opened the door before I could even reach the porch, her face grave, her eyes reflecting the horror of what she\u2019d found.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s sleeping,\u201d she whispered. \u201cFinally. Jimmy, we need to talk before you wake him.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She slid a manila folder across the kitchen table. My hands shook as I opened it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI went to your house yesterday,\u201d Elena said softly. \u201cI used the spare key. I wanted to get him some clothes, but\u2026 James, look at the photos.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I flipped through them. My home office\u2014my sanctuary\u2014had been ransacked. Files strewn like autumn leaves, drawers hanging open. But the basement\u2026 the finished basement where Danny had his playroom\u2026 it had been desecrated.<\/span><\/p>\n

The toys were shoved into a dark corner. The center of the room had been turned into an art studio, but the paintings on the canvases weren\u2019t child\u2019s play. They were crude, disturbing, and distinctly adult. Empty wine bottles lined the floor like discarded shell casings. And in the corner, on the inside of Danny\u2019s small closet door, were fresh, jagged scratches. Fingerprint marks in the wood.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe was locked in there,\u201d I choked out, the air leaving my lungs.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s more,\u201d Elena said. She opened her laptop and pulled up the home security cloud footage. \u201cThe files from Thursday night were deleted on the local drive, but they didn\u2019t realize the system backups to the cloud every six hours. I recovered the footage.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The video was grainy, but the nightmare was high-definition.<\/span><\/p>\n

7:00 p.m. Thursday.\u00a0<\/span>Joselyn<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0arrives home with a man I didn\u2019t recognize. He was tall, mid-40s, wearing a suit that cost more than my car. They go to the basement. An hour later, Danny comes down the stairs\u2014probably hungry, probably looking for his mother.<\/span><\/p>\n

The man\u2014a predator named\u00a0<\/span>Kirk Booth<\/span><\/strong>\u2014grabs Danny by the arm, dragging him roughly toward the closet. Joselyn stands by, watching, her expression one of mild annoyance rather than maternal instinct. They lock the door. They return to the \u201cart\u201d and the wine.<\/span><\/p>\n

At 10:30 p.m., they leave. Fifteen minutes later, the closet door creaks open. Danny emerges, his white shirt soaked in red paint from a tray he knocked over in his desperate escape. He runs upstairs, out the front door, and into the dark, barefoot and broken.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cKirk Booth,\u201d I said, the name tasting like ash. \u201cWho is he?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a corporate real estate developer,\u201d Elena said. \u201cWealthy, connected, and married to\u00a0<\/span>Leonard Klene\u2019s<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0business partner\u2019s daughter. That\u2019s how Joselyn met him.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The pieces clicked together with the sickening precision of a trap. Leonard\u2019s dismissal\u2014<\/span>not my responsibility<\/span>\u2014wasn\u2019t just coldness. It was a business decision. He had known. He had probably encouraged it.<\/span><\/p>\n

I walked into the bedroom where Danny lay curled in a ball, clutching a threadbare blanket. His eyes fluttered open. For a second, there was only terror, and then, recognition. He threw his arms around my neck and began to sob, a sound that broke the last of my mercy.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

I spent the next two weeks in a state of hyper-focused calm. I moved Danny and myself into an extended-stay hotel, claiming the house needed fumigation. Joselyn didn\u2019t even protest. She was too busy trying to keep the facade of her life from crumbling.<\/span><\/p>\n

I hired\u00a0<\/span>Glenn Grant<\/span><\/strong>, a private investigator who looked like a retired linebacker and had a mind like a master chess player.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cKirk Booth is leveraged to the hilt,\u201d Glenn said, spreading financial documents across the hotel room table. \u201cHe looks like a titan, but he\u2019s drowning in debt. He\u2019s banking everything on a major development project in\u00a0<\/span>Northwest Portland<\/span><\/strong>\u2014three city blocks of prime real estate. But the permits have been stuck in regulatory hell for eighteen months.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWho\u2019s blocking them?\u201d I asked.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNobody,\u201d Glenn grinned. \u201cSomeone is\u00a0<\/span>holding<\/span>\u00a0them. Guess who sits on the\u00a0<\/span>City Planning Commission<\/span><\/strong>?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>Leonard Klene<\/span><\/strong>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBingo. And guess whose company stands to make a fortune in consulting fees if those permits are pushed through? Leonard is pimping out his daughter to Kirk Booth to ensure his cut of the development deal. It\u2019s a closed loop of greed, James.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

My wife was the currency. My son was the collateral damage.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd Joselyn?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s sixty thousand dollars in debt from secret shopping sprees,\u201d Glenn said. \u201cKirk was her ATM. Leonard was the broker. They were all using Danny\u2019s home as a playground while you were away providing for them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I felt a cold, calculating resolve settle over me. I had spent fifteen years building a medical supply business through strategic planning and identifying the weaknesses of my competitors. I knew how to destroy a structure from the inside.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to just sue them,\u201d I said quietly. \u201cI want to dismantle their lives so completely that they\u2019ll wish they had never heard the name Merrill.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I started small. I used my business connections to reach out to Kirk Booth\u2019s investors. No accusations, just \u201cinnocent\u201d questions about the Northwest development project. Hints about pending litigation. Whispers about \u201cregulatory irregularities.\u201d Within a week, two of Kirk\u2019s major backers requested emergency audits.<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, I fed information to a contact at the\u00a0<\/span>Portland Tribune<\/span><\/strong>\u2014a journalist who lived for stories about planning commission corruption. I didn\u2019t give him Leonard\u2019s name yet. I just gave him the \u201cdelays\u201d and the \u201cfees.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The pressure began to build. Kirk\u2019s company stock started to tremor. Leonard Klene found himself the subject of a sudden, \u201croutine\u201d ethics review.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the enemy wasn\u2019t sitting still. On a Wednesday afternoon, my lawyer,\u00a0Patrick Goldberg<\/strong>, called me with a warning that chilled me to the bone. \u201cJames, they\u2019ve filed a counter-move. An anonymous tip to Child Protective Services. They\u2019re claiming you\u2019re the one who\u2019s been negligent.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The\u00a0<\/span>Portland Police Station<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0smelled of floor wax and stale coffee. I sat in an interview room with Patrick, facing\u00a0<\/span>Detective Sarah Walsh<\/span><\/strong>. She was a woman who looked like she\u2019d seen every variety of human filth and was no longer surprised by any of it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Merrill,\u201d she began, her eyes sharp. \u201cWe received a report that your son was found at his school late at night, and that you\u2019ve been keeping him out of classes and away from his mother for over two weeks. Can you explain your actions?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

They were trying to flip the script. They wanted to make me the unstable parent so they could bury the footage of Thursday night.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDetective,\u201d I said, my voice as calm as a frozen lake. \u201cI\u2019d like you to see something.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I slid the manila folder across the table. The photos of the art room. The scratches on the closet door. The forensic recovery of the cloud footage.<\/span><\/p>\n

Walsh reviewed the documents in silence. I watched her face. The professional mask didn\u2019t break, but her jaw tightened. She opened the laptop and watched the video of Kirk Booth dragging my son into a dark room while my wife stood by, checking her reflection in a mirror.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis man,\u201d Walsh said, pointing to the screen. \u201cWho is he?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cKirk Booth,\u201d Patrick answered for me. \u201cAnd the woman is James\u2019s wife, Joselyn. We have the therapist\u2019s records, the night custodian\u2019s witness statement, and a digital trail showing the attempt to delete this footage from the local server.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWait,\u201d Walsh said, her eyes narrowing. \u201cThis Kirk Booth\u2026 he\u2019s the developer involved in the planning commission scandal?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOne and the same,\u201d I said. \u201cAnd the man who filed the anonymous tip against me is my father-in-law, Leonard Klene. He\u2019s the one who\u2019s been holding Kirk\u2019s permits.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The detective closed the folder. The \u201canonymous tip\u201d had just backfired into a federal investigation.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Merrill,\u201d she said, her voice dropping an octave. \u201cI\u2019m going to need a formal statement. And I\u2019m going to need to speak with your son.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s ready,\u201d I said.<\/span><\/p>\n

But as we walked out of the station, Glenn Grant called me. His voice was urgent. \u201cJames, Kirk Booth just caught wind of the audits. He\u2019s panicking. He\u2019s at Leonard\u2019s office right now, and the neighbors say they\u2019re shouting. Kirk\u2019s investors are pulling the plug.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I knew what happens to men like Kirk Booth when they lose their money. They don\u2019t go quietly. They look for someone to blame. And I was the only target left.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The collapse happened with the frightening speed of an avalanche.<\/span><\/p>\n

The\u00a0<\/span>Portland Tribune<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0ran the story on Thursday morning.\u00a0<\/span>\u201cRegulatory Bribery: The Northwest Development Scandal.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0The article didn\u2019t just hint at Leonard Klene; it laid out the timeline of the permits versus the \u201cconsulting fees.\u201d By noon, Leonard had been suspended from the commission. By 2:00 p.m., the FBI had served a warrant on Kirk Booth\u2019s office.<\/span><\/p>\n

I sat in the hotel room with Danny, watching the news. He didn\u2019t understand the financial complexities, but he saw Kirk Booth\u2019s face on the screen, frozen in a frame from his arrest.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIs that the man?\u201d Danny whispered, his hand trembling as he reached for mine.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s him, buddy. He\u2019s going to a place where he can\u2019t hurt anyone ever again.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Joselyn called me at 4:00 p.m. Her voice was hysterical, a jagged mess of fear and rage. \u201cJames! What have you done? My father\u2026 the police are at his house! Kirk is in jail! They\u2019re saying I\u2019m an accomplice to neglect! You have to stop this!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t do anything, Joselyn,\u201d I said, feeling a cold, dark satisfaction. \u201cI just made sure the truth had a microphone. You made your choices the second you watched that man lock our son in a closet.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just a few hours! He was being difficult! James, I\u2019m your wife!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou were a mother first,\u201d I said. \u201cAnd you failed at that. The divorce papers are being served to you tonight. I\u2019m seeking sole custody, no visitation. And Glenn has already turned over the credit card statements to your father\u2019s ethics committee. He\u2019s being disbarred, Joselyn. And so are you.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re a monster!\u201d she screamed.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d I said, hanging up. \u201cI\u2019m the person you shouldn\u2019t have betrayed.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That evening, Kirk Booth\u2019s world officially dissolved. His wife,\u00a0<\/span>Christina<\/span><\/strong>, the daughter of Leonard\u2019s business partner, filed for divorce and took eighty percent of what was left of his liquidated assets. His investors sued him for racketeering. But the final nail was the criminal charge:\u00a0<\/span>Aggravated Child Endangerment.<\/span><\/p>\n

Leonard Klene, ever the pragmatist, tried to save himself. He offered to testify against Kirk in exchange for immunity on the bribery charges. But he didn\u2019t realize that I had already given the FBI the one thing he couldn\u2019t hide: a recording of our phone call from that Thursday night.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNot my responsibility.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The feds used that recording to prove his \u201cwillful neglect\u201d and \u201cprior knowledge of criminal activity.\u201d They didn\u2019t give him immunity. They gave him a cell block.<\/span><\/p>\n

But there was one final piece of the puzzle I hadn\u2019t expected. A letter delivered to the hotel room on Friday morning, written in a shaky, slantwise hand.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The letter was from Joselyn\u2019s lawyer. She was agreeing to everything.<\/span><\/p>\n

She signed over full custody. She agreed to a restraining order. She agreed to relocate to\u00a0<\/span>Seattle<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0and never contact us again. In exchange, she wanted me to ask the DA to drop the criminal neglect charges.<\/span><\/p>\n

I looked at the document. My lawyer, Patrick, was watching me. \u201cYou have them, James. You can bury her. You can send her to prison alongside Kirk and Leonard.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I looked at Danny, who was sitting on the floor, finally playing with his Legos again. The light was coming back into his eyes. He was speaking. He was healing.<\/span><\/p>\n

If I sent his mother to prison, the trauma would be a permanent scar. He would grow up with the weight of her incarceration on his shoulders. But if she was gone\u2014truly gone\u2014he could breathe.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSign it,\u201d I said. \u201cLet her go. Let her live in the wreckage of her own life, far away from my son.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Kirk Booth was sentenced to eighteen months in federal prison for the corruption and three years for the endangerment. Leonard Klene lost his business, his reputation, and was sentenced to four years. The development project in Northwest Portland was cancelled, the land sold to a non-profit that turned it into a community park and low-income housing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Joselyn disappeared into the gray rain of\u00a0<\/span>Seattle<\/span><\/strong>, a woman with no family, no money, and a name that was poison in every circle she once craved.<\/span><\/p>\n

Three months later, Danny and I moved into a new house\u2014a small, sun-drenched home in\u00a0<\/span>Lake Oswego<\/span><\/strong>. There were no basements. There were no dark closets.<\/span><\/p>\n

My sister, Elena, came over for our first dinner. We sat in the backyard, the smell of grilled chicken and summer grass filling the air. Danny was running through the sprinklers, laughing\u2014a sound that I had feared I would never hear again.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou did it, Jimmy,\u201d Elena said, clinking her beer bottle against mine. \u201cYou won.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t win, Elena,\u201d I said, watching my son. \u201cI just balanced the books.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

My phone buzzed. A message from Glenn Grant.\u00a0<\/span>Kirk Booth\u2019s appeal denied. Leonard Klene\u2019s assets officially liquidated. It\u2019s over.<\/span><\/p>\n

I looked at the message, then at the bright blue sky. I didn\u2019t feel the urge to strategize. I didn\u2019t feel the cold pull of consequences. For the first time in years, the hum in my head had stopped.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHey, Dad!\u201d Danny shouted, his face beaming as he ran toward me, dripping wet and completely whole. \u201cCan we get pizza for dinner tomorrow?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I picked him up and swung him around, the weight of him the only reality that mattered. \u201cAnything you want, buddy. Anything at all.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Justice is a cold dish, but peace? Peace is warm. And as the sun set over the Oregon hills, I realized that the greatest victory wasn\u2019t destroying my enemies. It was being the father my son deserved.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Six months later, I was back in a hotel room, this time in\u00a0<\/span>San Francisco<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0for a different conference. My business was thriving, restructured and stronger than ever. I checked my watch. 9:45 p.m.<\/span><\/p>\n

My phone buzzed.<\/span><\/p>\n

I felt a brief, familiar spark of adrenaline\u2014the old soldier\u2019s reflex. But when I looked at the screen, it was a FaceTime request from Danny.<\/span><\/p>\n

I answered, and his face filled the screen. He was in his pajamas, sitting on the couch with Elena. \u201cHi, Dad! Auntie Elena says I can stay up until you call!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m calling, buddy. How was your day?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

We talked about his school project, the new dog we\u2019d adopted, and the fort he was building in the backyard. There was no fear in his voice. No shadows in his eyes.<\/span><\/p>\n

After we hung up, I sat on the balcony overlooking the city. I thought about Kirk, Leonard, and Joselyn. I didn\u2019t hate them anymore. To hate someone, you have to still give them a place in your mind. They were gone. Erased.<\/span><\/p>\n

I reached into my bag and pulled out a small, framed photo. It was Danny, barefoot on the beach, laughing at the waves.<\/span><\/p>\n

I realized then that the red paint on his shirt that night hadn\u2019t been a sign of his end. It had been the beginning of his freedom.<\/span><\/p>\n

I am James Merrill. I am a strategist. I am a survivor. But most importantly, I am a father. And in my world, the truth doesn\u2019t just come out\u2014it builds the future.<\/span><\/p>\n

As I went to close my laptop, an email notification popped up. It was from a private investigator I\u2019d never heard of, based in Seattle. The subject line: \u201cJoselyn Merrill \u2013 Urgent.\u201d I hesitated, my finger hovering over the trackpad. Just when I thought the war was over, I realized that some ghosts refuse to stay buried.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cMr. Merrill?\u201d A woman\u2019s voice, strained and hovering on the edge of a panic she was trying to mask with professional distance. \u201cSpeaking. Who is this?\u201d \u201cThis is\u00a0Carmen Ryan, Danny\u2019s … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":926,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-story","category-story-daily"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=925"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":927,"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925\/revisions\/927"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}