The Stolen Girl (8 page)

I stepped inside and found myself in a fairly clean and well-maintained, if small, single room. There was a twin bed pushed into the back right-hand corner, taking up more than a quarter of the room. A small bedside table stood next to it, with a lamp on top. A small desk with a wooden chair stood against the left-hand wall, and there was a dresser next to the door with a small, old-looking television balanced on top. The furnishings were sparse but clean. The walls had a couple posters showing motorcycles tacked up, the paper not in frames but merely held to the wall with pushpins. I was vaguely reminded of some of the college dormitory rooms that I had visited.

“t’s kind of nice!” I commented honestly, stepping inside and looking around. “I was kind of expecting more death and black, to be honest. You know, skulls and stuff! Like a biker gang should have!”

Roads shrugged, still standing in the doorway. “What, don’t I seem tough and imposing enough already?” he asked.

Was that a joke? I eyeballed him with a critical expression on my face. “You seem like a big softy to me,” I shot back. “In fact, I bet that I could totally get you twisted around my little finger, get you to do my bidding!”

The biker looked as though he was trying to hold back, but he couldn’t prevent his lips from quirking up slightly at the corner of his mouth. “I’m very tough,” he said, unable to prevent a defensive, almost whining note from entering his voice. “But anyway, don’t go digging through all of my belongings, please!”

Wait. “Why would I be digging-” I began, but before I could finish the sentence, Roads had shut the door! I ran towards it, but a moment later I heard the clicking, metallic sound of the key turning in the keyhole. When I tried the handle, it didn’t budge. I was locked in.

I turned around and leaned against the door with my arms crossed, a grumpy frown on my face for a moment. I had definitely been connecting with the man. In the back of my head, a little voice was wondering what, exactly, I was after with this connection, but I hushed it. He was one of my kidnappers, and I knew that establishing a good connection with them would make them less likely to strike out against me, to consider hurting me. If they could see me as a person, they would find it tougher to kill me, to dispose of me if things went wrong.

But then why did I care so much more about Roads seeing me as a good person than the others? And why was I envious of those other women that had come up and flirted with him? In fact, he was probably heading back downstairs right now to go resume where he had left off with them, to take off his clothes and become just one more writhing, sweaty body in that orgy, fucking and sucking and pleasuring everything around him!

As my mind began playing scenes of this, my fingers tightened into fists, my nails biting painfully into my palms. I wasn’t going to put up with this any longer, I decided. It was time to snap back to reality. I had to get out of here.

I lifted my gaze and began looking around the room. I had been left here, unsupervised and unbound, and this could be my chance to turn the tides. Maybe I could find a way to communicate with the outside world, or some sort of weapon that I could hide on my person in case things went south. Heck, maybe I could even find some new clothing, something less dirty and stained than my current outfit.

Whatever I did find, however, I had to remember that I was a captive. I couldn’t let myself forget my biggest goal: to escape. To get to safety.

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I
walked the two steps that it took to cross Roads’ small room, and flopped down on his bed. It creaked comfortably under my weight and I felt myself slide slightly in towards the center; clearly, the big man made regular use of this bed. Once seated, I took a moment to pull in a long breath, sucking in air until my lungs were completely full, and then slowly let it out. I repeated this twice more, letting the stress flow out of my limbs. Only after I felt that I was calm enough did I raise my gaze, peering around the room.

The small television sitting on top of the dresser caught my eye. But how did it turn on? I cast my gaze around the room, settling on the bedside table. There was a single drawer in it, and I tugged it open. Inside was a box of condoms, a few hairpins, and bingo! A remote! That had to be for the television. I grabbed it, ignoring the other items, and aimed it at the screen across the room.

A click of the red button at the top, and the screen winked into life. The display was a bit fuzzy, and the picture occasionally seemed to jerk a little, but it was good enough for the moment, and the sound was fairly clear. Roads had apparently last been watching some sort of sports channel, as the screen showed a bunch of basketball players running back and forth.

Working the buttons on the remote, I scrolled through the channels, searching for a news program. It didn’t take me long to find one. About ten channels down from the basketball game, I hit a female news anchor, her hair expertly in place as she sat behind a desk and shuffled a stack of papers on the desk in front of her, gazing intently into the camera.

I let the program run for a while. There was international news and politics, most of which I already knew from listening to my father. As a senator, he tended to learn about international incidents and political issues at least a day or two before the mainstream news crews would begin running full segments. A commercial break followed, which I sat through impatiently. And then, after a brief segue into weather and the heat wave apparently going to sweep across the country over the next two weeks, the segment that I had been waiting for finally came up.

“...and on a more tragic note, we have reports coming in from Washington, DC, that Senator Leonard Sterling’s daughter is currently missing. Authorities have not released any details at this time, but we have unconfirmed reports that evidence points to foul play, and she may be currently being held against her will.”

On the screen, the female anchor’s face was replaced by a large photograph of me. I recognized the picture. It was from my spring prom, just a few months ago, although my date had been clipped out of the picture. I snorted a little when I saw the image. Sure, I looked beautiful in the image, but that was after spending all day at a beauty salon, having my hair perfectly cleaned and shaped, and with expertly done makeup on. I was pretty sure that even the bikers downstairs wouldn’t connect that picture with me.

“If you have seen this young woman, or have any information that might be pertinent to the investigation, please don’t hesitate to call the number at the bottom of the screen,” the news anchor went on. “And now, we have a personal statement issued by the girl’s father, Senator Leonard Sterling, less than an hour ago.”

The camera shifted, and I felt my stomach lurch. My father! I didn’t always communicate my best with him, but I loved him dearly, and I couldn’t imagine what he must be going through, not even knowing if I was alive or dead. I knew that he had been under extra pressure in the last couple months with the approaching internal primaries to select the next presidential race candidates; I had heard my father’s name tossed around several times, and suspected that he was a strong choice. He had been handling the excess stress surprisingly well, but this must have thrown a monkey wrench into what little calm he still had.

The screen now showed a podium, set up with green trees in the background. I gasped aloud as I recognized the setting - this was just outside my house! In a murmur of reporters and clicking of cameras, my father stepped onto the screen. He looked haggard, the lines evident on his age and his eyes looking red and swollen even beneath a layer of concealer. He had definitely been crying. I felt my heart lurch.

Standing just behind my father, in the spot normally reserved for his chief of staff, stood a woman that I didn’t recognize. Her hair was cut severely short, not quite touching her shoulders, and when her eyes met the camera, they were a cold and piercing blue. She seemed to spend most of her time watching my father, however, and her whole face softened when she looked at him. I didn’t recognize the woman, but when my father shifted to the side for a moment, I saw some sort of badge attached to the pocket of her blazer. She must be with the authorities, I decided. And when my father sucked in a deep breath, I saw her hand rise for a moment, looking almost as though she wanted to reach out and pat my father in a gesture of comfort.

My father paused for a moment at the podium, looking out into the cameras with that deep, penetrating gaze of his. “When I returned home this afternoon, my daughter was missing, and the police have agreed that signs suggest that foul play may be involved,” he said, drawing in a deep breath. “If anyone out there has any information, please, please contact me. I am willing to do whatever it takes to ensure my daughter’s safe return.”

After this sentence my father paused, clearly needing a moment to pull himself back together. He looked exhausted. When he raised his gaze back up to the cameras once more, I could see the hint of tears glistening in the corners of his eyes. I felt similar tears starting to well up in my own. “Beth, if you’re out there, please let us know,” he said, his voice sounding choked up and thick. “We are all praying for you. Please be safe.”

The view of my father mercifully faded away after this statement, before the flurry of shouting reporters that I knew would have followed such a statement. Before the camera cut away, I saw the blonde woman standing behind my father step forward, that icy mask snapping back onto her expression as she gazed out at the crowd. She was definitely someone from law enforcement, I decided.

The news anchor’s head reappeared, my picture digitally superimposed next to her. “Once again, the number for information is at the bottom of the screen,” she said. “The senator, one of the early favorites for the upcoming presidential election, has announced that there is a reward for any information leading to the safe recovery of his daughter.”

I blinked several times, lifting up a handful of the bed’s cover sheet to wipe away the tears wetly glistening on my face. I felt so horrible for my father! And as the blanket came away damp, I steeled myself. Time to find a way out of here. Time to make my escape.

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T
he reporters stuck around for a while at Senator Leonard Sterling’s home, shouting over each other as they called out questions, but Carol calmly and clearly answered each question in turn. She had instructed Sterling to remain quiet and not respond after he had given his statement, and he did so, standing in back with his gaze downcast while she fielded question after question.

Some of the reporters quickly recognized that they wouldn’t be learning anything else new or interesting, and began packing up their equipment shortly after Carol took the stage. But there were always a handful, either newbies still hoping to make their first big break or those representing smaller publications with nothing to lose in terms of credibility, who stuck around and kept on calling out aggressive or barely related questions.

But they couldn’t gain any purchase, couldn’t find any holes in the rhetoric coming from the woman on the stage. As he listened, Sterling had to admit that he felt a faint but growing sense of admiration. This woman had clearly handled situations like this before, and knew how to handle a crowd.

Sterling’s gaze soon settled onto Carol’s feet, a neutral area for his eyes to rest. She was dressed in a pair of black low-heeled shoes, and her slacks were short enough for Sterling to catch a glimpse of ankle as she shifted back and forth. And, weirdly enough, he noticed how her ankles were quite shapely, pale but unblemished skin curving nicely around the start of her legs. For a moment, his eyes nearly tracked upward towards her ass, but he managed to get ahold of himself before that. It would look terrible if he was seen checking out another woman while at a press conference about his missing daughter!

Carol took a few more questions, but it was clear that her patience was growing thin. Eventually, she raised her hand, cutting off an especially verbose young reporter mid-sentence, and announced that the conference was over.