The Stolen Girl (6 page)

“Yes, it is,” Sterling replied. He quickly searched his memory for the associated name. “Agent Gates, what can I do for you? Do you have new information for me?”

“Unfortunately, not at this time,” the agent said, but she was kind enough to put a sympathetic spin on the words. “However, we would like for you to make a statement to the press this evening, if you’re willing. We believe that more visibility will be helpful for our case, and if you feel comfortable enough to speak in front of cameras, we could assemble the reporters at your house to put this in the media right away.”

Sterling took a deep breath. “I think I can handle that,” he replied. He had also been speaking with his chief of staff, and while the man had expressed his dismay and hope that the situation would resolve itself, he had also pointed out that this tragedy could provide a boost in support in the polls. Sterling couldn’t fault the man for thinking along such callous lines; that was his job, that was why the man was such a powerful member of his campaign staff. The man would be happy to hear that the senator was taking his advice.

There was a brief pause at the other end of the line, and then Carol spoke up once again. “We will schedule the conference for a couple hours from now, before the sun has set,” she said, her tone revealing that she was probably looking at some list at the same time as she spoke. “I’ll be there, of course, to issue an official statement from the FBI as well.”

Sterling was about to hang up, put the phone away and reflect on this new trial he would have to now endure, but then Carol said something else. “How are you doing?” she asked. This time, unlike the conversation up until now, her voice was softer, less hardened and professional.

The senator opened his mouth, words already springing to mind. Hanging in there. Getting through it. Trying to stay positive. Lots of different phrases, all deflecting the question and not giving any sort of a true answer. But this wasn’t what came out of his mouth.

“I’m having trouble,” he said, the words halting and punctuated with hesitation. “I keep on thinking about my daughter, about all the times that she got hurt, or scared, or panicked. I keep on seeing her like that in my mind, and it’s hard to focus on anything else.”

For a moment, the phone was silent, and Sterling worried that he had overstepped the bounds of the new and tenuous relationship between him and this woman. But then, just as he was raising his hand to hit himself in the forehead, Carol spoke up. “I know what you mean,” she said, her tone filled with caring. “And that’s perfectly normal. People say that you should put it out of your mind, but that’s bad advice - no one can do that. So instead, try and visualize everything working out, a happy ending.”

Sterling closed his eyes and tried to picture his daughter returning home, her smile stretching wide across her face. He tried to see her running across the front lawn towards him, throwing her arms wide and tackling him in a bear hug, laughing and crying all at once. And, to his surprise, it did help a little bit. Not a lot, but a little. If nothing else, it replaced those nightmares that had been on repeat inside his head.

“Thank you,” he said softly into the phone. “That works.”

“I’m glad,” Carol replied, equally softly.

Sterling said his goodbyes and hung up, but didn’t rise from his seat right away. Instead, he pulled in a long, deep breath and slowly let it out. Elizabeth had been the one who had first told him that he ought to mediate, back when he had been on the campaign trail and pulling eighteen-hour days. He could remember her face, even though the conversation had been nearly a decade ago, gazing earnestly up at him when he came home late one night.

“Daddy, I think you need to learn to meditate,” she had announced as soon as he walked into the door, no preamble before getting right to her idea. “I saw a TV show about monks who do it, and they were super calm and smart and could think about things really well. You should do that too so you can think about things really well.”

Dropping his briefcase at the entrance to the house, Sterling had plodded into the kitchen, his daughter padding along behind him. He remembered that she had insisted on a pair of footie pajamas for Christmas that year, and had religiously worn them every night until they no longer fit. “Shouldn’t you be in bed by now?” he had asked, reaching into the fridge to pull out a bottle of beer.

The little ten-year-old had put her hands on her fleece-covered hips and glared at him. “It’s not a school night,” she stated, sounding like a teacher correcting an errant pupil. “And you have to be up earlier than me and you’re not in bed, so I win.”

Sterling opened his mouth to retort, but then closed it, instead reaching over to ruffle his girl’s hair. This had been less than a year after his wife had passed away, and he still sometimes felt himself feeling about to tear up for little to no reason. Seeing his daughter’s earnest face gazing up at him was one of those reasons.

“Meditate, huh?” he said, making sure that his tone sounded considering. “Tell me about these monks. You have to sell this, have to make it convincing!”

As he had taken a seat in living room on a couch, Elizabeth had climbed up next to him, pulling up her feet onto the couch beneath her. “The monks do it for hours, but you just have to do it for a few minutes,” she explained, sounding almost like a lecturer as she recited the information. “But you have to do it every day. And you have to not think about anything and just focus on listening to your breath. I tried it and it’s hard but the TV show said that it takes practice. Like riding a bike.”

The senator had lifted his beer to his lips, but lowered it back down without a sip. “Okay, but are you going to do it with me?” he asked, stretching out one arm.

His daughter immediately crawled over to snuggle up against him, letting his arm come down to wrap around her shoulders and chest protectively. “Okay, daddy,” she whispered, her eyes already beginning to droop shut. “I’ll do it with you.”

And so Sterling had sat on the couch, holding his daughter and trying to think about nothing, trying to keep out all the thoughts of the campaign, of his obligations to his constituents, and of his shattered home life. He tried not to think about the trials that his young daughter would face as she grew up and entered her teenage years, tried not to think about how much he felt the absence of his wife. It hadn’t been entirely successful, but when he next looked down, Elizabeth was fast asleep.

The senator had scooped up his daughter, carrying her upstairs and depositing her in her bed. He had sat at the foot of the bed, the covers pulled up to her chin, and had tried not to think. And although his meditation attempts never grew to be truly successful, like the monks his little girl had watched so adamantly, he had kept on practicing.

And now, the senator once again focused on just listening to his breath as he sat in the chair and waited for the FBI agent and the reporters to arrive at his house. He would need to haul out the podium in the garage, kept there specifically for conferences at his home. But that would come later. Now, he wanted to calm himself, to be prepared for what was undoubtedly going to be one of the toughest speeches he’d ever give.

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I
couldn’t even begin to say how long of a ride we took. It could have been no more than half an hour, or it might have been four times that. All I could remember was speeding along in the setting sun, watching as the last rays of light sank behind the trees at the edge of the highway, the wind rushing through my hair and blowing it out around my face, my nostrils filled with the heady leather scent of Roads’ jacket and my entire body shaking, both from the engine between my legs and from the pleasurable sensations rising up to suffuse my body and limbs. If I had ended up in this situation through a less stressful means, if I hadn’t been brought here against my will through a kidnapping, I would have actually enjoyed this memory.

Eventually, I felt the revving of the engine between my legs ease off slightly, and I pulled my face up from where it was buried in Roads’ back. We had exited from the highway, I now saw, and we were turning off of the main road. When I looked around, however, I didn’t see much evidence of civilization. Where were we? Where had these bikers brought me to?

We rolled along a couple smaller two-lane roads, eventually passing into a tiny town, one so small that I didn’t even spot a sign announcing its name. Of course, I might have simply missed it - the sun was well below the horizon, now, and only the headlights of the motorcycles illuminated the road ahead and the surroundings we were passing through.

The town that we seemed to have entered had a “downtown” that didn’t seem to consist of more than a few small convenience stores, a couple of bars, and two or three cheap, sleazy-looking hotels. The stores were lit with a variety of neon signs, most of which seemed to be advertising for cheap beer. I wondered if we were going to turn into one of these hotels. Was I going to be spending this night chained to a radiator as well, forced to do everything in front of these men without any sense of privacy or decency?

No, however; that didn’t seem to be the case. We rolled onward, through the center of the tiny town, past the shady motels with their blinking, flickering neon lights. Instead, we headed up a small hill, with a large house sitting at the top and silhouetted against the night sky. It seemed that this building, this tall and gaunt house, was to be our destination for the night.

Sure enough, we pulled up the driveway towards this house. The house seemed to be built by itself. Instead of neighbors, it was surrounded only by trees. Gravel crunched under the wheels of the motorcycles as they ran up the unpaved driveway, and the loud, constant sounds of engines revving, to which I had almost become accustomed, died away one by one as the bikers parked their machines and cut the power.

As the sounds of roaring gas-fueled monsters faded from my ears, I began to hear sounds coming from inside this house. It was a large house, vaguely similar to my own home, with a wrap-around porch and large front windows. Warm yellow light was shining out of those windows, and I could hear the faint but persistent sounds of booming music coming from inside. This was accompanied by the clinking of bottles, an occasional yell or whoop, and the murmurs of conversation. It sounded like there was a party going on inside.

A moment later, I suddenly realized how cold I was, and how much I wanted to get inside and into that warm light. The ride had been long and hard, and I was definitely not dressed in enough clothing to handle being pummeled by seventy-mile-per-hour winds for that long! The engine between my thighs had helped keep my core warm, but my hands and feet felt as though they were made of blocks of ice. As I started to try and move them, I felt creaky, and my teeth began to uncontrollably chatter inside my mouth.

Just as I was starting to pry my chilled hands free from Roads’ leather jacket, Slammer came storming up to the bike. He barely spared a glance towards me, however. Once he had confirmed that I was physically present, nothing else about me seemed to matter - least of all my discomfort. “Get her inside, quickly, before anyone in the house gets too good of a look and puts two and two together,” he ordered Roads. “We’re not kicking back until she’s stowed away safe and sound! Make sure to lock her up.”

Well, that sure sounded like I was going to soon find myself once again forcibly fastened to the radiator. Different room, same situation. A moment later, however, I felt a pair much larger and warmer hands wrap around my own chilled fingers, as Roads carefully lifted me free of the back seat of his chopper.

“So how was your first ride?” he asked me, his tone surprisingly comforting and mild as he swung a leg over the seat and stood up as well.

I shook my head. “It, well, it was something else,” I said, not sure whether he had realized just how intensely I had felt that ride.

When I looked up at his face, however, I could see a smirk dancing around his lips. “You know, a lot of women really like taking rides with us,” he said, unable to prevent the corners of his mouth from lifting up. “Something about the vibration of the engine…”

Tugging one hand free from his grasp, I swatted at him, but the motion was playful rather than truly attacking. His smile widened as he put his hands up in mock defence against my blows. In the unsteady light from the front windows of the house, the shadows wreathed his face and made him look quite rugged. Despite my situation, despite my exhaustion and fear, I still felt a tiny flicker of attraction bloom briefly inside my chest.

A moment later, however, a cold gust of wind came racing through the trees and shaking the leaves. I shivered violently as it hit me, and this didn’t escape Roads’ notice. “Let’s get you inside,” he said, wrapping one big arm around my shoulders. He guided me towards the house, up the steps of the front porch. The other bikers had already entered, although I noticed that Flamer was leaning against the bottom of the steps up to the porch. A lit cigarette dangled from her lips, and she rolled her eyes lazily at Roads and I as we passed.