The Stolen Girl (3 page)

“I’m really sorry about this,” the man said. His deep voice was soothing, smoother than the jagged edges hidden just under the surface in Slammer’s tones. “But I’m going to unlock you - please don’t make me have to restrain you again.” He held my hot gaze for a minute, undeterred by my anger. “Are you going to cooperate?”

He was waiting for a response, so I gave him a slow nod. In my head, however, I was running through my options, looking for a way out. The man still stood between me and the door, but maybe I could get around him, or find something to use as a weapon.

Roads pulled a small silver key out of a pocket on his jeans and leaned forward. He stretched his arms around me, but as he fumbled for the cuffs on my wrists, his chest was pressed up against me, my head pushed into the nape of his neck. I had to pull in breath, and despite myself, I noticed his deep and musky scent. He smelled of the dirt of the road, of that motor oil I associated with the garage of my father’s house, but more than anything else, he smelled of comforting manliness. That scent was like a hammer blow to my focused anger.

There was a tiny click from behind me as the key unlocked the cuffs pinning my wrists to the radiator. Roads leaned back, and I pulled my arms around, rubbing my hands back and forth to work out the soreness. I glanced up at the man. He was still hanging close, but his eyes were warily watching me. I knew from his expression and the way he held himself that I would not be getting away easily from this man. He looked as though he could read my thoughts, could see that I was looking for a way out. His conversation with Slammer had suggested that he wasn’t on board with my kidnapping, but he wasn’t ready to release me on my own. Not yet.

“Come on, time to get up,” Roads spoke up after a minute, rising back up to his feet. He put one hand on the TV stand as he levered himself up, and I could see the big muscles in his arm tensing as he flexed.

I also clambered up to my feet - at least, that was my intention. I managed to get up and on my feet for a moment, but an instant later, I felt my still-asleep leg muscles give out, and I took a tumble down. I could see the carpet coming up closer - and then Roads’ hands came down and wrapped around me, arresting my fall.

The big man caught me easily, and I could feel the heat from his palms seeping in through my thin clothing as he held me up while I unsteadily regained my footing. His hands were wrapped around my chest, just below my bustline, and his big fingers nearly wrapped all the way around my slim torso. I was all but certain that he could feel my heart beating like a jackrabbit inside my chest. Hopefully, he’d just attribute it to fear. And I wanted that to be the only emotion in play.

As soon as I had regained my balance, I pushed the man’s hands off of me. He stepped back, giving me space to take in a calming breath, for which I felt a frustrating twinge of gratitude. I was sure that Slammer would not have let me go without an intrusive grope, if not something worse. But Roads merely gazed back at me, looking calm and level.

“Listen,” I spoke up. “You could just let me go. I know that you’re worried about the trouble kidnapping me will bring, and I can tell you that it will be dire - but if you take me back home now, I won’t say anything about it. I’ll just say that I ran away, and you’ll be free of it all.”

The big man gazed back at me, but I saw a hint of regret enter his eyes. “Afraid not, hon,” he said with a shake of his head. “I might not agree with Slammer’s approach, but he’s right. And I can’t cross the leader.”

Since my father was a high-profile man, I knew the strategies for handling being kidnapped. My dad, always concerned about my safety, had made sure that each step was drilled into my head. And one of these steps was to establish an emotional bond with my kidnappers, to make sure that they saw me as a person. “It’s not hon,” I replied. “It’s Elizabeth. Beth for short.”

Roads blinked at this. “Beth,” he repeated. “And I’m John.”

“Not Roads?”

The man cracked a smile for a fraction of an instant at this. “My last name’s Rhodes, with an ‘h’,” he said. “So when I joined the Outlaws, it was pretty easy for them to settle on my nickname. And I'm just fine with you calling me Roads. It's what everyone else does.”

Before I could ask any more questions, the man blinked again and pushed away that sympathetic expression. His thumb rose up and jerked towards the back of the room, towards the door to the small motel bathroom. “You’d better go use that. We’ve got a long ride ahead of us.”

“Okay, Roads,” I replied, making sure to use the man’s preferred name. Establish an emotional connection. Make myself seem like a real person. I walked slowly into the bathroom, flicking on the light and closing the door behind me.

Roads’ hand snaked in before the door could slam shut, however. “I’m really sorry,” he apologized. “But I can’t let you out of my sight. Not even in there.”

I opened my mouth to argue, as my sense of decency warred against my ingrained training. But I shut it a moment later without speaking. It was important to not protest, not seem at all antagonistic to my captors. Even if that meant some embarrassment.

Glaring out the door and maintaining defiant eye contact with Roads, I wiggled the tight elastic waistband of my fleece pants down over my hips. In a strange and totally inappropriate thought, I found myself feeling momentarily grateful that I had shaved my legs that morning so that I could wear shorts to school. But I plopped down on the toilet and did my business as quickly as possible. I feared that if I stopped feeling angry, even for just a few moments, the emotion would be overtaken by embarrassment and my cheeks would be suffused with redness.

When I stood up, hitting the lever on the toilet with my elbow, I made sure to turn around and grace Roads with a full view of my ass, mocking him as it jiggled and disappeared behind the fabric of my cotton panties and fleece pants. From outside the door, I heard a sigh.

“You know,” the man spoke up, “you should be happy that I’m a nice fellow. Any other member of my gang would see that as an open invitation - one that you probably aren’t intending to make.”

The man sounded amused by this! “A nice fellow?” I shot back. “I’m sorry, but kidnapping an innocent girl doesn’t usually fall under my definition of a nice fellow!”

I heard the bedsprings creak as the man stood up. A shadow passed by the door, and as I glanced up in the mirror, I saw the suddenly stony visage of Roads loom up behind me. As I stared up into the mirror, suddenly paralyzed by the giant so close behind me, Roads let out a long, deep sigh.

“Listen to me,” he said, and one of his big, heavy hands rose up to settle on my shoulder. He didn’t apply any pressure, but I could feel its weight, intimidating me. “I am not an animal, unlike some of the guys that ride with me. But I am committed to them; they are my family. And if this is Slammer’s plan, then I am going to carry it through.”

I pulled in a shaky, shallow breath. I didn’t trust my voice to reply. Roads was definitely not being threatening; he hadn’t lifted a finger against me, and I somehow felt that he wouldn’t dare to do so. But he also was built like a tank, and I suspected that he could easily rest his chin on top of my head without having to stretch to his tiptoes. He wasn’t leaning against me, but I swore that I could feel the heat radiating from his body through my thin clothing.

“Okay,” I finally stammered, half-turning and gazing up at the man. My god, he was intimidating! But as he looked back down at me, the light of compassion finally sparked again in his eyes. His hand, still on my shoulder, relaxed and rubbed up and down in a comforting manner. And despite the fear and uncertainty clouding my mind about my new situation, I had the strange but unwavering belief that this man, this captor of mine, was also going to be a powerful ally.

I didn’t know if that sense of silence could truly be called a moment, but it was interrupted a second later by the front door to the motel room banging open. “Hey! Roads!” came a loud and gruff voice. “Come on, Slammer says it’s time to ride!”

Roads let out his breath in a deep sigh and, hand tightening slightly on my shoulder, he turned me away from the bathroom mirror and led me, gently but surely, out of the bathroom and towards the front door. “Don’t worry,” he whispered down to me. “Just relax. Your first time on a bike, meeting the rest of the gang, may be scary, but don’t let them intimidate you. Don’t make anyone upset, and I’ll do my best to keep you safe.”

His words were reassuring, but as he led me out the front door, my tiny bit of calm slipped away, and I could feel panic once again rising up in my mind. The front door of the motel room led out onto the cool outdoors of the motel’s parking lot, and in the setting rays of the sun, I could see at least a dozen shapes milling around. And as I blinked and tried to adjust to those bright rays coming in just over the roofs of the surrounding buildings, their details didn’t reassure me in the slightest.

☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼

S
enator Leonard Sterling looked up as he heard the click of the door latch releasing. He had been sitting in this small, windowless room for more than an hour, and he was beginning to lose all traces of hope.

The woman who entered looked to be the picture of a professional, dressed in a severe black suit and with her pale blonde hair clipped off in a blonde bob cut. She had classical, delicate features, but her face was set in a determined frown. She walked into the room with confidence, pulling a manila folder from beneath her arm and dropping it onto the table in front of Sterling as she slid into the seat across from him.

Sterling’s eyes had been on the woman from the moment that she entered the door, but he kept his mouth shut. As a politician, he knew how to maintain the balance of power in a conversation, as well as the importance and usefulness of silence. So despite the fear that felt like a physical ball sitting in his throat, he kept his mouth shut and waited for the woman across from him to speak.

She held out for a few seconds, fiddling with and adjusting the folder on the table in front of her, but Sterling didn’t cave. Finally, she parted her lips, her tongue flicking out ever so briefly to moisten them. “Hello, Senator,” she said. Her tone was as brisk and businesslike as the rest of her outward appearance. “My name is Carol Gates. I’m the FBI agent assigned to your case, and I’ll be in charge of the effort to locate your daughter.”

Even at these words, Sterling mentally moaned. His wife had passed nearly a decade ago, when Elizabeth had been just a little girl, still in elementary school. The young daughter had become Sterling’s primary focus, his focal point in life. Unlike most fathers, who grew apart from their daughters, Sterling had put in the time and effort to remain close, to keep his fatherly relationship open, trusting, and honest. But that closeness came at a price. His mind wouldn’t stop playing a constant slideshow of terrible scenarios, each one showing the horrors that his daughter could be experiencing at this very moment.

But the senator’s political career didn’t let him show his anguish, forced him to keep it inside. “Yes,” he said, impressing himself with how even his voice sounded. “Please to meet you - and Sterling is fine. It’s how my campaign staff refers to me. Now, what can I do to help?”

The woman across the table looked up and fixed the senator with an incredibly piercing look. Sterling maintained eye contact, as he had been trained to do for decades, but he found it surprisingly hard. The woman had pale blue eyes that looked like chips of ice, but somehow simultaneously showed a deep depth of emotion - all locked away. Sterling felt as though his soul was being minutely examined.

“Sterling,” the woman repeated flatly after moment. “Well, we need to go over everything you remember about your daughter’s recent life. Who she was seeing, who she might not have been getting along with, anything out of the ordinary that you can remember.” The woman reached into the manila folder and removed several sheets of lined paper, which she slid across the table towards the senator. Reaching into the inside breast pocket of her blouse, she removed a pen, which she tossed on top of the paper.

Leaning forward, Sterling picked up the pen, but he kept his gaze on the FBI agent across the table. His mind, adept at picking up the little details, flitted over her as he worked to create his own profile. She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, and the gold studs in her ears said that she was focused on being professional. The severely cut suit also agreed with that. But when Carol had removed the pen from inside her blouse, it had fallen open slightly, and between buttons of her white dress shirt, Sterling caught the faintest flash of hot pink. Perhaps this woman wasn’t completely robotic after all.

The senator quickly laid out as much as he could remember about his most recent conversations with Elizabeth, although nothing seemed out of the ordinary. She had broken up with her ex-boyfriend a few weeks ago, but Elizabeth had talked freely about it, and it had sounded fairly amicable. School had just ended, and she was looking forward to spending the summer reading, relaxing, and preparing for college to start the next year. Everything had seemed to be just fine.