Caught (19 page)

He studied her for a minute and looked like he was about to say something. Then his stare went blank. “Typical family bullshit. Nothing worth sharing.”

Not with you, anyway.
He didn’t say it, but Toni got the point loud and clear.

Ouch. Not only had she let him see her naked, she’d told him all about what happened to Michelle, a subject she never brought up with anyone. Sure, she’d kept it matter-of-fact and to the point. She didn’t tell him that Michelle’s death had sent her mother into a depression from which she’d never recovered. To this day, Toni was convinced it was that, and not the cancer, that had killed her. Guilt had ravaged Susan Crawford’s body to the point that she didn’t even want to fight. She didn’t tell Ethan what it had felt like, living with a mother who missed Michelle so much that Toni felt guilty for being alive every time her mother looked at her.

Now, as she looked at Ethan, his face closed up like a black box, she was glad she hadn’t shared any of that with him. Glad she hadn’t reached out in some ham-handed attempt to offer comfort he didn’t want. All that talk about her being “different,” but his boundaries were as clearly staked as if he’d put up caution tape.

Intimacy issues.
Funny how she should be so hurt by Ethan’s reluctance to share, when John had so often accused her of the exact same thing. Served her right. She knew exactly what to expect from a man like Ethan, and it wasn’t deep conversations all about sharing emotions and childhood traumas.

“I’m glad everyone is okay, then,” she said, retreating behind the security of her computer screen.

“Thanks. If you don’t mind, I need to meet with Derek and make some arrangements. I’ll call you later.”

As she watched the door slam shut behind him, Toni could hardly believe this was the same man who, less than five minutes ago, had been describing in vivid detail how much he enjoyed performing oral sex on her.

She slumped back in her chair, wishing she had it in her to let this go, wishing she didn’t have the gut-deep instinct that something was very wrong, wishing she didn’t need proof that Kara was safe and sound and on her way home.

As soon as she heard from Kara, she was getting out of town and on with her life. At this point, she didn’t care if she had enough money for a security deposit or another job lined up when she got to Seattle. Right now, she needed to get out of here before she did something really stupid. Like fall in love with Ethan Taggart.

K
ARA LAY ON a twin bed, one wrist handcuffed to the metal bed frame. They’d moved her here right after they’d taken those creepy pictures, and she still wore the same white nightshirt thing and cotton panties they’d posed her in.

So some disgusting man could see what he was getting before he paid someone for her virginity.

Nausea roiled her stomach. She tried not to think about it, reminding herself over and over that this was all about her dad, that the blond guy only threatened to hurt her because he wanted some chip or something from him.

But it had been at least a couple of days, and she was still here. Not in the basement anymore, at least, but in a small wooden building on the property. Kind of like a shack that had been converted to a really crappy guest house. It had electricity and a bathroom, and a set of twin beds. Mostly, Kara had been left alone, except for a few times a day when someone—usually a mean-looking guy with dark hair and bad skin—came to give her food and water and uncuff her long enough to let her go to the bathroom.

What was taking so long? This would be her third night here. At least, Kara thought it was the third, but it was hard to tell how much time had passed since she had no clock or watch, and both windows in the place—one across the room from her, the other in the bathroom—were shaded so completely they blocked out all the light. Not to mention that it prevented anyone from seeing in. But from what Kara could tell while they were moving her to the other building, there weren’t any people out here to see. They’d loaded her into a dark SUV and driven her a short distance down a dirt road bordered by dense redwood forest. There wasn’t a single other vehicle or person other than the guy driving the car, the same big blond guy who’d taken her pictures while the other guy watched.

She’d been so scared, wondering where they were taking her. She’d cried and begged him to let her go, promised that her dad would pay him whatever he wanted if he just let her go now.

He hadn’t even glanced in the rearview mirror, stonily focused on navigating the narrow, bumpy road.

None of her captors tried to hide their faces from her. No one seemed to care that she saw her surroundings.

On TV and in movies, that meant they weren’t worried about being identified by their victims. Which usually meant the victims ended up dead.

At the realization, Kara had been hit by wave after wave of panic, followed by periods of fitful sleep as her body recovered from the stress.

Right now, she almost felt numb, lying here in the light of the single lamp. The sandwich that Crater Face had brought her sweated on a plate next to her. She hadn’t touched it, or any of the other food they’d brought her. Fear cramped her stomach and killed her appetite, and now the smell of lunch meat made her want to hurl.

Suddenly the door burst open. It was Crater Face, but this time the beefy guy was with him.

Along with two other girls.

Kara barely registered the girls’ faces as they were dragged roughly through the shack and shoved into the bathroom. She could hear the girls crying and protesting over orders to strip. The water ran in the shower, muffling their cries. A few minutes later the girls were dragged, naked and shivering, into the main room.

They were both young—younger than Kara. Maybe fifteen or sixteen? One was tall and thin, her dark, wet hair sticking to her shoulders as she tried to cover herself with one arm over her chest and a hand between her legs. The other was blond, shorter and kind of chunky. She was completely freaking out, screaming and crying, “Please let me go, let me go,” like a siren, over and over, until Kara was afraid she was going to scream, too.

Crater Face grabbed a canvas bag and fished a bundle out of it, shoving a white garment at each girl. “Shut up and put this on.”

The dark-haired one snatched it to her. Her eyes darted over to Kara, then slid away, as if maybe if she didn’t look, the girl tied to the bed would disappear. There was something oddly familiar about the girl’s face. The girl yanked the nightshirt on—it was white and ruffly, identical to the one Kara wore—and dragged the underwear up her legs.

The blonde was still screaming, backing away with her hands up as Crater Face tried to make her take the shirt.

Suddenly, the blonde made a break for it, busting past both men and running headlong for the door. She hit the door and flung it open, but Crater Face caught her by the hair and dragged her back inside. He grabbed her by the throat and shoved her up against the wall.

The girl’s fleshy shoulders heaved and her eyes bugged out as her scream finally stopped, cut off by the thug’s meaty grip.

“Shut. The fuck. Up. You hear me.” Tears spurted from the girl’s eyes and she started to whimper.

Crater Face backhanded her across the face.

“Stop, you are not to mark them,” the big guy said in German accented English. “Now we have to do touch-ups!”

Crater Face released the girl, who sank to the ground in a quivering, whimpering mess. The dark-haired girl stood frozen in the center of the room, chest heaving and eyes darting wildly from Kara to the thugs to the chubby blond and back again.

“Get her up,” the blond said to Crater Face. “You.” He motioned to the dark haired girl. “Come with me.” She slid Kara a wide-eyed look and took a reluctant step toward the door, while Crater Face heaved the blond girl to her feet and dragged the white shirt over her head.

“Just do what they say,” Kara blurted. “Do what they say and you won’t get hurt.”

She had no idea if that was true, but so far it had worked for her, and she prayed it would be the same for the other girls.

They were back shortly. The men handcuffed the blond next to Kara on her bed and the dark-haired girl to the other one and left without a word.

Kara mashed herself against the wall to make room for the other girl, who lay on her side, so scared the bed shook with her tremors. The dark-haired girl was statue-still, curled in a ball as she stared at Kara with wide, fear-soaked eyes.

“What are they going to do to us?” the girl said in a high, thin voice.

Kara shook her head and awkwardly patted the blond girl next to her. “I don’t know. Maybe nothing.”

“Why did they take those pictures of us?”

Kara shook her head, not wanting to freak them out. “They brought me here because they want something from my dad. I think they took those pictures to show our families.”

The girl’s face pulled in confusion. “Do you think they want money? We don’t have any money.” Her voice started to shake. “My dad’s a postal worker, he can’t pay ransom.”

The blond girl started to sob again. “My mom teaches third grade, she hardly makes anything, either.”

Kara’s mind raced. What could she tell them? That her father was rich and could pay whatever their captors wanted, so too bad for them?

Besides, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something really bad was going to happen to her, whether her father gave in to her kidnappers’ demands or not.

“It’s going to be okay,” she said, patting the blond girl’s shoulder to try to calm her down.

They were silent for a while, the only sound in the dim room the blond girl’s muffled sobs. The dark-haired girl stayed frozen in a ball of skinny limbs.

“What’s your name?” the blond girl finally asked with a sniff.

“Kara. What’s yours?”

“I’m Emily. That’s Jessica.”

“Are you from around here?” Maybe they knew where they were, knew if they were close to a road or as far out in the middle of bumfuck nowhere as Kara feared.

Emily’s hair brushed Kara’s shoulder as she shook her head. “I don’t even know where here is,” she said. “They knocked me out, and we drove for a long time after I woke up.”

“Where are you from, then?”

“Fresno,” Emily answered.

“How about you?” Kara asked Jessica. She wasn’t even sure if the girl heard her, she was so zoned out.

But Jessica answered, “I’m from Mission Viejo,” through lips that barely moved.

Something clicked in her brain and fear crystallized in Kara’s stomach, spreading and spreading until even her scalp felt cold. “You’re from the V-Club.”

EmilyJ from Fresno. JezzC from Mission Viejo.

Both girls had been members of the online community for months, posted regularly, had their pictures all over it. Kara remembered that Emily was fourteen and Jessica fifteen. Kara thought of the explicit posts, the vicious taunts she’d posted under her Kstar90 alias, and felt guilt pile onto the anxiety that already had her stomach in knots. Though it was only a matter of a few years, she felt ages older than these two girls. And ashamed at the way she’d made fun of them, goaded them, laughing because no one realized who she really was.

“Oh my God, you’re that Kara,” Emily said.

“You think that’s part of the reason they took us? Because they want girls who promise to stay virgins?”

“It has to be,” Kara said. This was so messed up. How many times had they chatted about meeting face-to-face?

And now here they were.

“I know we’re supposed to be careful about what we say,” Emily said, her voice cracking. “But who ever thought it would be dangerous to talk about being a virgin?”

She remembered how Toni had cautioned her to be careful about what she did on her FacePlace page. “Don’t ever give any details about yourself. Never friend anyone unless you’re positive who they are.” Kara had rolled her eyes, thinking how she liked Toni and all, but she was way too paranoid from all the snooping around she did.

“We’re a bunch of virgins, Toni. No one cares what we have to say.”

Of course, Toni had no idea about her other online persona. She had no idea Kara was posting pictures of herself and talking graphically about sex. No one did, except for Toby. Kara loved the rush she got every time she logged on as Kstar90, knowing that no one had any idea who she really was. As far as anyone knew, Kara was the model kid everyone wanted her to be.

She’d never expected that keeping up her image as Daddy’s perfect little girl would land her and two other online friends handcuffed to beds in a shack in the middle of nowhere.

She felt Emily shaking next to her, heard the sobs she tried to hold back in her throat. That bad, dark feeling she had when she realized the men weren’t hiding their faces came back. “They’re going to sell us,” Kara said finally. Her friends deserved to know the truth, no matter how horrifying. Emily stiffened next to her. “I heard one of the men—the head guy, I think—tell my dad about it.”

Her throat got tight, and panic once again seized her lungs. At the time, she’d been able to keep a grip on her fear, convincing herself it was all bullshit, a ploy to get her dad to cooperate and give up whatever prototype the man was talking about.

Now she was afraid they had no intention of letting her go, no matter what her dad promised.

Toni hadn’t heard from Ethan since he left her apartment the previous day. She’d pulled her phone out to call him a dozen times, but each time she’d stopped short of dialing his number. She had nothing new to tell him. Though she still held the faint hope that Kara was just partying at the beach with her friends, she wasn’t surprised not to hear from her. She assumed Ethan would have called her if he’d heard anything new.

In the meantime, she was still going through gigabytes of files and archived messages on Jerry’s computer and had recovered his deleted files. But she hadn’t found anything of particular interest, and it didn’t help that she wasn’t sure exactly what she should be looking for.

And a lead was the only excuse to call Ethan. No matter how much she wanted to call him, see if he was okay, see if his brother and father were okay, he’d made it clear yesterday he didn’t want her sympathy. Didn’t want her probing into his personal life.

For the billionth time, she wondered why the hell she cared. It wasn’t as if she was looking for a relationship with Ethan or any other man. She was blowing town as soon as possible, getting in her car and taking off for Seattle ASAP.

That was her plan, and she was sticking to it.

She wondered if Ethan spent last night alone.

She wondered what was up with the family baggage he alluded to.

The urge to do an extra-thorough background check was nearly killing her. It would be so easy. Ten minutes, fifteen tops, and she’d know everything about Ethan Taggart from his birth weight to where he’d had dinner last night.

When the urge reached the overwhelming state, she laced up her running shoes and drove to the foothills near the Stanford campus for a run. She loved running here, through the sunbaked hills dotted with twisted old oaks, up to the massive satellite dish with its nose tipped to the sky. And right now, focusing on not passing out from the heat as she pounded up a steep hill that led to the dish was enough to keep her brain occupied for half an hour or so.

On the way home, she made a quick stop at the grocery store to pick up milk, coffee, and cereal. Stalling, since she knew the second she got home she was going to Google Ethan at the very least.

She pulled into her parking space, the afternoon sun hitting her like a blast furnace as she got out of the air-conditioned car. She went around to the back and saw that everything had scattered across her trunk in the course of the short drive home. She bent over to gather up her groceries and heard an engine roar to life somewhere in the parking lot.

Someone needed to get their ass to the Midas Muffler shop, stat.

She shoved everything back into the bag and grabbed the plastic handle, cursing as the handle ripped, sending a carton of milk tumbling back into the corner of her trunk. She reached into the trunk, fumbling around until her hand finally closed around the cool cardboard. As she pulled it out, the rumbling engine grew louder and louder until the sound was almost deafening.

She looked up to see a beat-up sedan barreling right at her. The milk carton slid from her hand. The car was going way too fast to stop before it hit her. She flung herself to the side, landing between her car and the one in the next parking stall a split second before the sedan slammed into the back of her Honda.