The Stolen Girl (4 page)

“Indeed, there may not be any connection to your daughter’s personal life,” Agent Gates said, when Sterling voiced these thoughts. “We have several leads that we’re following up on, and the case could go in one of several different directions. We will keep you informed.”

The agent reached out across the table to collect the sheets of lined paper as Sterling set down the pen, but the senator made his move. Sterling grabbed Carol’s hand in his own, pressing her smaller, more delicate fingers between his as he stared straight into those icy blue eyes. “Please,” he pleaded, feeling the woman’s pulse at her wrist. “Just tell me whatever you find, as soon as you can. She’s my daughter - she’s all I have left in this world, and I will do anything, give anything, to get her back safe.”

Sterling held Carol’s gaze. The FBI agent at first looked as though she was about to pull away, but then, suddenly, her cold exterior warmed slightly. Those icy blue eyes softened, relaxed and gazed back at Sterling. “I promise that we’ll do everything we can,” the woman said in a more quiet tone, reaching over to lay her other hand on top of Sterling’s. “And I will personally make sure that you are told everything.”

The woman’s touch was warm on his hands, and for a brief second, the senator had a flashback to his wife. “Thank you,” he said, putting as much emotion into those words as he could.

But as he released Carol’s hands, she kept on looking at him, her head tilted slightly to one side in observation. “You know, most people aren’t nearly as close with their children as you seem to be,” she commented. “I always thought you just put on a show for the cameras and the media.”

Sterling shook his head. “My wife - Elizabeth’s mother - passed away when she was nine,” he explained. “And in that moment, I realized that this girl, my daughter, was all I had left. I don’t come from a big family, and this little girl, this smart, beautiful, talented little girl - well, she became my everything. I would give up all that I have for her, in a heartbeat.”

The speech was unplanned, unprepared, but Sterling caught a tiny hint of wetness at the edge of Carol’s eye before she brushed one hand across her cheek. “That’s a wonderful dedication,” she said. Sterling thought that he could detect a faint tremor in her voice.

For a long moment, the woman sat there, gazing across the table at Sterling. And as he looked back at her, Sterling was surprised to find unexpected thoughts rising up in his head. Nudging their way in beside the ever-present sense of worry and concern, he found himself noticing the lines of Carol’s face, the hints of the shape of her body that could be discerned even through her severe and unflattering clothing. Behind her front of serious professionalism, she was a beautiful woman. In another time, another place, Sterling could almost see himself making a move.

But this was not the right time or place. All of his focus had to be on his daughter, and Carol needed every bit of concentration as well. Scraping his chair backwards across the cement floor, Sterling rose up to his feet, breaking the moment. “Is that all that you need from me?” he asked, re-buttoning the middle button of his suit coat.

Carol jerked, ever so slightly, as she snapped back out of whatever vision she had been seeing. “Just one more thing, senator,” she said. The professionalism was back in her voice. “If you could provide some way for us to contact you, some number where we could reach you immediately, it may be useful if the situation changes.”

Sterling nodded, and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a business card, but then turned it over and placed it on the table, picking up the pen once again. “This is my private cell number,” he explained, as he jotted the digits onto the back. “If you call me on this, I promise that I’ll answer right away - day or night.”

Sterling’s eyes clouded slightly as he finished jotting down the number. “I always told Elizabeth that she could call me at this number,” he reflected, holding the card between his fingers for a moment. “I told her that no matter how much trouble she was in, no matter where she was or what she had done, she could call this number and I would pick up. I would be there to help her, no matter what.”

Carol reached out and ever so gently lifted the card from Sterling’s fingers. Her other hand rose up to touch his upper arm, a soft touch of comfort and shared anguish. “We will find her,” she promised softly. “We will do whatever it takes.”

The senator nodded, and followed the female agent out of the room. He was still filled with fear and worry, but this woman in front of him had shown a core of surprising resolve and determination. She truly was committed to this case, and something, some unspoken and unquantifiable quality about her, told Sterling that she was completely deserving of his trust.

☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼

W
hen I was led outside of the motel room, I stepped directly into the blaze of the afternoon sun, and my unprepared eyes squeezed shut. Shaking my head, I tried to adjust, gazing down and blinking furiously. After a few seconds, I was able to see again, and I quickly looked around to try and gather information about my location.

There was a bench situated right next to the entrance to the motel room, sitting on the poured concrete slab of the patio. Two men were lounging on this bench, and they both turned to look up at me, grins spreading across their faces.

The closer man to me was shorter and more wiry than both Roads and Slammer had been, and he looked decidedly scruffy. He wore a leather vest with only tattered openings where the sleeves had been; it looked almost as if a wild animal had savaged him and ripped away the fabric. His hair was short and spiked up in a maze of frosted tips, contrasting powerfully with his large and pointed beak of a nose. He wore a large, thick iron chain around his waist, through the belt loops on his pants, and it clinked as he shifted position to scrutinize me. “So, is this our little captive songbird?” he grinned up at me. “The senator sure did a good job making his daughter, I’ll say that!”

The man at the far end of the bench grunted at this. This fellow was black, the first black member of this gang I had seen so far. He was a giant, but while Roads and Slammer both looked as though they had been carved from a solid block of muscle, this fellow leaned decidedly towards fat. He didn’t seem to have any sort of neck; his head, bald and hairless, sat on top of his shoulders like a grape. Even his own black leathers seemed to be stretching to try and accommodate his bulk. He was lazing back on the bench. He merely grunted again, his small and deep-set eyes running briefly over me. I wasn’t holding any food, so he quickly lost interest, returning his gaze back down at the pile of hair in his lap.

Wait. Hair? I blinked and looked again. Only then did I realize that there was a third person on the bench - a woman! She was lying down on the bench, and her head seemed to be buried in the fat man’s lap, so all I could see was the pile of blonde hair and a denim jacket. She seemed to be bobbing up and down slightly; I could see that one of that fat man’s hands was resting on the back of her neck, helping to guide her. What was going on?

The big man let out one more grunt, this one a little louder and longer than the others, and I watched, my eyes wide, as his fingers tightened in the woman’s hair. He hauled her upright, and I suddenly realized what was going on. The man had been getting a blow job from this woman, right out here in public! His cock was revealed as it slid out of the woman’s mouth, and I could hear her gasping and pulling in air. As her face was finally turned so that I could see her, I saw drops of white liquid hanging out of the corners of her mouth, rolling down her face as she sucked in air. The woman’s features were young and tight, and with a shock of realization, it hit me that she had to be right around my age. She couldn’t have been older than nineteen!

The smaller, skinnier man at the other end of the bench cackled. “Damn, Biggie, you sure blew that load fast, huh?” he snickered.

The big man - Biggie, his name must be - didn’t respond to this barb. Instead, he merely grunted again and struggled up to his feet. The bench let out an audible creak as he rose, and he reached down and began strenuously hauling his pants back up to cover his now-sagging cock. I tried not to stare. I had never actually seen a penis outside of the films that I occasionally stumbled upon on the internet. My father had always taught me to be responsible, to not rush into relationships, and although I’d had boyfriends through high school, we had never progressed much past necking in a parked car.

Biggie’s penis was dark-skinned, just like the rest of him, although the head of it looked a bit redder in color. When the girl had pulled it out of her mouth, I would have sworn that it was well over half a foot in length, but it now seemed to have shrunk down to just a few inches.

There was another snicker next to me. Startled, I turned and looked down at the skinny man with the frosted tips in his hair, who was grinning back up at me. His grin didn’t seem too friendly, however. I was uncomfortably reminded of a wolf. “Looks like our little captive has an eye for cock!” he announced loudly. “She can’t take her eyes off of it!”

I felt my cheeks suffuse with color, and pulled my eyes down to the floor. The man reached out and grabbed my chin, however, pulling my head back up. “How about I show you what a real dick looks like, huh?” he suggested. “Little Rachel here hasn’t finished - we paid for both of us, and now it’s my turn!”

Releasing my chin, the man reached out and grabbed for the girl still sitting on her knees on the bench next to him. Rachel, this poor girl’s name must be. The skinny man grabbed at her denim jacket and pulled it roughly down her shoulders. When he did so, I realized that the girl wasn’t wearing any shirt beneath! Her tits, small and seated high on her chest, were suddenly exposed to the open air, and I saw her nipples harden and contract from the cool breeze.

The man stood up and his hands swung down to that chain that wrapped around his waist. With a clink, the links parted in the front, and the man yanked out his own penis. He shoved the erect rod forward at the girl, and her eyes rolled around to focus on it. Submissively, she opened up her mouth, and the wiry man grabbed at her head and forced her down onto his knob. She made a gagging noise as he crammed her head down as far as it would go, but she didn’t make any sort of effort to fight back. I pulled my eyes away in revulsion.

Behind me, Roads had been doing something inside the motel room, but he now stepped out behind me, and I felt his hand on my shoulder once again, steadying me. “That’s Biggie and Chainz,” he commented, as his hand gently guided me further away, past the horrifying sight. “Guys, wrap it up. We need to hit the road.”

“Hey!” Chainz complained. “We payed this bitch for a full hour, and I haven’t even gotten my turn yet!”

“Not my problem,” Roads responded. His voice was still level, but I could hear the slightest hint of a rumble deep in his tone, threatening to rise up if he kept on getting back talk. “You should have thought about that before paying her. Besides, if you payed her for a full hour, what are you going to do for the other fifty minutes!”

This sounded like an insult, and for a second, I saw Chainz’s eyebrows narrow and his lips pull back in a snarl. The expression was only there for a second, however, and he relaxed into that wolfish grin. “Well, I can always grab another bitch at our main haunt,” he said, and his hand relaxed its grip on the teenager’s head as she squatted in front of him. She pulled back immediately, once again gasping for air as his cock came out of her mouth. Still smiling, Chainz reached forward and planted both of his hands on her naked chest, squeezing tightly at her tits. “I’ll be back, babe,” he said in a half-whisper, leaning forward to speak into her ear. “And when I get back, you’re gonna be doing a lot more than giving me head!”

Roads kept up the gentle pressure on my shoulder, and we walked out further, towards the parking lot. In the spots in front of our motel room, I could see a bunch of motorcycles, parked close to each other in unsteady rows. “Our chariots,” Roads announced, and I swore that I could her the slightest bit of self-depreciating humor in his voice.

“Good, you got our little kitty out.”

I knew that voice, and couldn’t hold back a shudder. I turned as Slammer came striding up, two other bikers close behind him. Trying vainly to suppress the shudder of fear running through me as he approached, I focused instead on inspecting the other two bikers.

The man on Slammer’s right was short but muscled, and he looked like he spent a lot of time in a gym. His hair was buzzed short, vaguely reminiscent of a military haircut. He wore a pair of glasses on his face, which made him seem a little bit nerdier than the other bikers. Judging by how his arms bulged with rolling muscles beneath his jacket sleeves, however, I didn’t doubt that he could pound anyone who called him a “nerd” or “geek” into the pavement with relative ease. He gave me a quick once-over, but didn’t seem particularly interested in me one way or the other. Instead, I caught him turning around and glancing out at the road several times, a nervous expression on his face. Perhaps he was starting to understand just how much trouble they were getting themselves into, kidnapping a senator’s daughter.