Rod (24 page)

“That’s the only other place I can think
of, unless they have already moved her to Lester’s place,” I say.

“Well, there’s only one way to know for
sure,” he says as he climbs on his bike and puts the key in the ignition.
 
I get on the back of his bike and we’re off
speeding out into the night looking for clues.

A short while passes and we are on a
similar street with a dark blue house in our sights.
 
The mailbox reads, “
Cardov
,”
and we look to each other in satisfaction.

He takes us to the side of the place where
he parks the bike and I hop off to get a good look inside.
 
I can’t hear anything coming from the house,
but there are no lights on, so it’s merely a guess.

“Everything here is dark,” I tell Rodney.

“That is just fine,” he says.
 
“We’ll still do the same thing we did before,
only this time listen for animals as well as people.”

“Got it.”

He grabs his metal bar and pries a back
window open.
 
He kneels down with his
hands together and I place my foot inside to get my body high enough to climb
in the window.
 

“Stop and listen,” he commands from down
below.
 
“You can’t go inside if he’s got
a dog or something.”

I listen to the sound of silence and
realize that there is absolutely nothing coming from inside of the house.
 
I give him the okay signal and pull my body
the rest of the way in.
 
Once inside, I
look down to Rodney and point to the front door.

I walk over to the door and unlock it,
allowing his entrance.
 
With no nearby
neighbors, I flick the light switch on without fear of someone finding us.
 
I light up the house as I walk into each
room, yelling “Sasha” to the emptiness.

Rodney and I walk through the upstairs, to
the attic and all of the way downstairs to the basement.
 
I feel the sinking of my heart when we come
up short.

A tear leaves my eye and I feel an
overwhelming sense of defeat.

“Hey, we will find her,” he tells me
adamantly.

“I know, I just thought she would be
here,” I say.

“We can still go back to Lester’s and
search there again,” he says hopefully.
 
We leave the place out of the front door after securing the window.
 

“Is this just hopeless?” I ask
rhetorically.
 
We walk to the side of the
house where Rodney’s motorcycle is parked and I see a garage in the back of the
yard.
 
“Wait, we can look in there.”

I point in the direction of the garage and
Rodney smiles.
 

“Let’s do this,” he says, leading the way
to the back yard.
 

Once in the back, we make our way to the
garage and I look on as he tries to force the door open.
 

“It won’t budge,” he tells me.

I walk around to the side of the garage
where I see a door.
 
I walk over to him
and say, “There’s a door; can I have that metal bar?”

He reaches into his inside jacket pocket
and extends the bar my way.
 
I force the
door open, damaging it in the process.

“Oops,” I joke as the door swings
open.
 
The inside is covered in cobwebs
and dust, but we both see Boris’ dirty white van parked neatly inside.

“Eureka,” he says as he walks toward the
van.
 
“This is the van they used to pick
her up and take her places.”

“My dad told me we should search it just
to be sure,” I say.
 
When I draw closer
to the van, I hear a muffled sound coming from the van.

I take the metal bar and bash in the lock
on the rear of the van.
 
I hear the noise
grow louder and convince myself that we are onto something.

I pry the van’s door open and we both
stand there in awe of what we see.
 
My
sweet baby sister is sitting in the front part of the van tied up and
gagged.
 
She squirms, but can’t really
speak.
 
I climb inside of the van and
crawl my way to her.
 
Her body is thinner
and dirty and I wonder how long it has been since she’s eaten or taken a
bath.
 

I put my hands on the back of the blindfold
and carefully remove it from her little face.
 
Her blonde hair is muddy looking and her eyes suddenly full of hope.

The smell inside the van overwhelms me,
but I turn Sasha around to untie her hands from behind her back.
 
Once free, she rubs her hands where the rope
bound her and she places her arms around me.
 
Hugging me tightly, I see a smile creep across Rodney’s face.

“Alright, let’s get you both out of here,”
he says.

Sasha and I crawl our way to the back of
the van and I jump out.
 
I extend my arms
to help her exit the van and she jumps to me, holding on for dear life.
 
She clings to me and smiles.
 
The smell dissipates as we close the van’s
back door.

“What was that smell?” I ask her.

“The big guy gave me a bucket and told me
to use it as a toilet,” she tells me as her eyes well up in shame.

“There is nothing to be ashamed of, Sasha.
You did nothing wrong here,” I tell her.

“I know, but it’s kind of gross,” she says
looking up at me.

“That’s on them, not you,” I say.

We walk over to Rodney’s bike and I look
down to her to see her thinning frame.

“When was the last time you’ve eaten?” I
ask her.

“The old man was feeding me twice a day,
but the two other guys came and they gave me food once a day.”

“Jesus Christ,” I say in astonishment.

“Trish, I’ll call your father and let him
know what happened.”

“That’s a good idea,” I tell him as Sasha
clings on to me.

I pull my phone out, call my dad’s number
and hand the phone to Rodney.

“Hey,” he says.

“We found Sasha,” Rodney tells my father
calmly.

He nods in response to what my father says
and smiles.

“She was bound and gagged in the back of
Boris
Cardov’s
white van, just like Trish said,” he
tells my father.

Nodding again, he adds, “Alright, we’ll be
there soon.”

Rodney hands me back the phone and pulls his
from his pocket.

“I’m
gonna
call
the cops and let them know what we’ve found so there’s a paper trail,” he tells
us.

“Good idea.
 
What did my father say?”

“He said that he is in the middle of the
meeting, but he knows what he wants to do now.”

“He’s going to beat them to death,” I say.

I pull my phone out and call my father’s
number.

“Dad?” I say as he picks up.

“Yeah, what’s going on?”

“We’re waiting here for the cops to
come.
 
Rodney’s calling them now.
 
I want you to wait to do anything until we
get there.”

“You want to see us beat the ever living
shit out of these clowns?” he asks.

“Yes, both Sasha and I deserve to watch.”

“Is she okay?”

“She’s fine, but she’s hungry, thin and
pretty dirty,” I tell him.

“Do I need to know anything else before I
make these guys pay?” He asks.

“No, but wait.
 
Don’t do anything crazy,” I tell him.

“I won’t, honey.
 
Just get here as soon as you can.
 
I’ll hold everyone here.”

“Okay dad, I’ll see you soon,” I say.

We sit there and wait for the police to
show up.
 
Twenty minutes pass before
Boris
Cardov’s
house is completely surrounded by
police cars with their flashing lights.
 
Minutes later, red lights and a vehicle’s loud siren makes its way down
the street.
 
An ambulance pulls up to get
a fix on the situation.

“Is everyone out?” The officer in charge
asks.

“Yeah, the creep has been holding my baby
sister all this time,” I tell the officer.

“I’m Officer
Grendy
,”
he says.
 
He kneels down to get a look at
Sasha and cringes at the state of her hair and clothes.
 
“Man, these guys are animals.”

The paramedics come over to us as the
entire street is lit up with the lights of the emergency vehicles.
 

“Is this the victim?” they ask as they
approach Sasha.

“Yes,” I tell them.
 

“Alright, we just need to take a look at
you, young lady.
 
Can you walk?”

She nods yes and the two paramedics usher
her to the ambulance.
 
Rodney is off in
the distance talking to another officer and I follow the paramedics.
 

“I hope you don’t mind me being here, I
just think she needs to see a friendly face after being gone for so long,” I
tell them.

“Sure, it’s no problem at all,” the lady
paramedic tells me.
 
Sasha remains close
to reaffirm my statement on her need to have me here.

The guy paramedic takes her vital signs
and asks her a series of questions.
 
She
quietly answers each question and begins to hold her stomach.
 
She doubles over and I look up to the
paramedics.

“Those idiots only fed her once a day; is
there any chance you have something to eat back there?” I ask them.

“Surprisingly enough, we do,” the male
paramedic says.
 
We had just gotten
dinner from a local restaurant when we got the call and took our food to go.”

“How does a cheeseburger and French fries
sound?” the lady asks Sasha.

Her face lights up as the woman hands her
a white Styrofoam box full of food.
 
Her
eyes widen and she focuses all of her energy on putting the food into her mouth
as quickly as humanly possible.
 
After
she consumes the cheeseburger, she slows down to enjoy each French fry, one by
one.
 
I look down to smile at her and
feel a sense of accomplishment.

I place my arm around her as we sit on the
back of the ambulance and I assure her that she is all better now.

“Everything is going to be okay from here
on out,” I tell her.

“I was so scared,” she says with those big
eyes staring up at me.

“I know,” I say as I tighten my
embrace.
 
“Nothing like this is ever
going to happen to you ever again.”

She nods as I hold her close to me.
 
The street is completely bright and I feel
relief.
 

“From now on, you will never have to go back
and forth to school alone.
 
Dad and I
will make sure of it.
 
Those guys are
going to jail, that I can promise you.”

Her face brightens, but it’s filthy from
the dirt of her former confines.
 

“Can I call my mom?” she asks gently.

“Of course,” I tell her handing her my
cell phone.
 
“I’m sorry I didn’t think of
that already.”

She takes my cell phone and dials the
number.
 
She gives her mother the details
on what went down with her capture and nods a few times in the process.

After five minutes pass, she ends the
conversation with, “Alright mom, here’s Trish.”

She hands me the phone back and tells me,
“My mom wants to know where to pick me up, but I don’t know the address here.”

“It’s alright, I’ll tell her,” I whisper
to her as I place the phone to my ear.

I give Missy the address and tell her to
come to the source of all of the flashing lights.
 
She informs me that it will be roughly twenty
minutes before she gets here.

“That’s okay,” I advise her.
 
“She still needs to give her full statement
to the police.”

We disconnect the call and Sasha looks
exhausted.
 

“Can you go back to
dad’s
without me?” she asks.

“Of course I can, sweetie, no worries
there,” I tell her.

Our conversation comes to a halt when
another officer approaches us.

“Can I ask you a few questions, honey?” he
asks, kneeling down to be at eye level with Sasha.