Pretty Little Girls

by Jenifer Ruff

  Keep watch. Be alert. No one knows the exact day or the hour.

  One of her grandpa’s favorite expressions about how Christ could damn them all to an eternity of agony or free them to the wonders of heaven at any moment. Repeating the saying was his way of reminding his grandchildren to behave, to stop doing whatever they were doing to aggravate him. Believing Christ might return to earth at any moment gave her something to look forward to. Everyone who had hurt her would tumble straight into the burning, stinking pits of hell. She didn’t know when it would be, but it had to happen. Some people deserved their punishments sooner rather than later.

  Ragged, breathless shouts of “no,” “please,” and “stop,” traveled through the walls—the new girl still begging and pleading between wrenching sobs. If the new girl thinks Svet is rough, she has no idea what’s coming.

  Turning over on her cot, Sofia grabbed her iPod, stuffed her earbuds into her ears, and turned up her music. A few feet away, Anastasia slept on her side with a pillow covering her head. Mercifully, it was getting harder for Sofia to remember the vivid details of her first days. Her memories were numbing. She’d only been thirteen.

  Stephen was charming. Ms. Bois—that wasn’t her real name and she forbid them to call her anything else—was stylish and beautiful. Together, the evil duo tricked everyone. They seemed legit as they recruited girls to audition for their modeling agency, sharing photos and runway videos of their current models. They promised sums of money almost unimaginable for Sofia’s family, and a glamorous life in America. Sofia was already feverishly hooked even before Stephen explained—in an oh-so-caring voice—the sorts of things she could buy once she started earning money. Washing machines, clothes dryers, microwaves, things that would drastically change her family’s home life.

  Like she was sharing special secrets, Ms. Bois whispered about facials and massages, celebrity-like benefits that would further enhance their incredible beauty. They were to be pampered like movie stars. Truly, it was Ms. Bois who had missed her calling. She should have been an actress in the movies. She was the master of effortless lies, the greatest pretender of all time, the ultimate ice queen incapable of compassion. She was meaner than Satan. Thank God they rarely saw her anymore.

  And Stephen—he had to be insane. Not sound of mind—as her grandfather used to say about the crazy lady who lived alone across the street and occasionally ran outside in her pajamas, yelling random things—where are all the birds, who took the birds?—and shaking her fists at the sky. But unlike the old crazy lady, Stephen could fool anyone when he wanted.

  The days before Sofia arrived in the United States were the most exciting days of her young life, full of eagerness and anticipation. All because she had no idea what was in store.

  “You’re going to love it there,” Ms. Bois cooed before they left Ukraine.

  Now, Sofia laughed aloud at the naïve, wide-eyed girl who arrived in the land of opportunities with five other girls, including Sasha and Anastasia, each of them believing they were the luckiest people in the world.

  At the airport, their dreams quickly shattered. Petar and Svet herded the girls into a van like animals bound for the slaughterhouse. They delivered them to a dingy, underground room.

  Stephen had burst into song, making the crazy lady from across the street seem quite sane in comparison. “Ukraine seems like a dream to you now!” He grinned as he sang, scaring the girls out of their wits.

  “Bringing you here cost us a lot of money,” Ms. Bois said, her voice harsh and unrecognizable, acting like everything that had transpired had been the girls’ idea. “You must pay us back first, before you earn any money of your own.”

  There was never another mention of modeling.

  Another shriek penetrated the walls, barely perceptible above her music.

  Sofia cried so much those first weeks, through assault after assault until every bit of her body ached from the abuse and she couldn’t believe there was a tear left untapped. The threats never ceased, but for three long years she endured and survived. And in all that time, she had yet to see anyone earn their freedom. She’d seen two murders—one girl strangled, one shot in the heart—to teach the others a lesson. Some just disappeared, like Sasha. But none of them were saved, as far as she knew.

  No one knows the exact day or hour. Nothing lasts forever.

  Sofia cooperated to stay alive. Compliant on the outside, tough and growing harder on the inside.

  With a half-hearted shrug, she picked up a magazine and thumbed through it. She stopped at an advertisement. A beautiful woman pressing her forehead against her palm, eyes closed, her face a miserable grimace. The caption read: Do you suffer from migraines? Get the help and relief you need.

  Sofia carefully tore into the paper, cutting around the word help.

  She dropped the scrap onto the floor under the cot.

  Her own little trail of crumbs.

  Would the new girl’s mother know something bad happened to her?

  Sofia’s exhausted, hard-working mother never knew. “I’m going to make you proud,” Sofia had said, taking in the worry, but also the hope in her mother’s eyes during their final farewell.

  I still will. Once this all ends.

  Tentatively, she pulled one earplug away from her ear.

  The new girl’s voice had grown raspy and weak, but she still sobbed and yelled out for help that would never come.

  God, she’s a feisty one. She still doesn’t get that her whole life has changed. Maybe it’s hard for her to believe, but the sooner she figures it out and toughens up, the better off she’ll be.

  Svet might pull out a back tooth, cut off part of a toe. He knew little things that wouldn’t show but hurt like bloody hell. After he’d run out of tricks, if the new girl still wouldn’t cooperate, or if she wasn’t very pretty, she’d be drugged with meth or heroin and used up in the dark behind a motel room door that opened and closed with a never-ending stream of customers. That would be her miserable existence until she died of sickness or overdose. That’s how it worked. The motel girls never lasted very long. Thank God she wasn’t one of them.

  Yet if she hadn’t been so beautiful, she’d be home with her family right now, complaining with her brothers about their cramped cottage and too many chores, but happier than she’d ever realized.

  For a long time, over a year, it had been just the three of them—her, Anastasia, and Sasha—moving place to place, never more than a week in the same location, enduring shameful and perverted horrors behind closed bedroom doors. But now it was only her and Anastasia. Perhaps the American was meant to replace Sasha.

  Where are you, Sasha?

  Sofia squeezed her eyes shut as she heard confused pleas and a final blood-curdling scream.

  The branding.

  Yep, the new girl was here to stay.

  Chapter Seven

  Resting on her cot, Sofia finally set her book aside and edged forward to study the newest arrival. She squinted to take in the details she craved. Her eyesight wasn’t so great anymore. She needed glasses, but that wasn’t going to happen. Stephen said it was her fault for reading so much.

  She inhaled a light scent, something floral with vanilla mixed in, barely detectable over the odor of freshly burnt flesh and sweat. Long, straight, smooth hair lay in sections over the new girl’s back and shoulder. It was tangled, but clean and voluminous, as they said in the magazine ads. Beautiful highlighted streaks of gold blended with light reds and light browns. Sofia resisted the urge to reach out and stroke it.

  The girl had been lying face down on Sasha’s cot for fifteen minutes, ever since Svet called her a whore, shoved her into the room, and locked them in again. Her shoulders lifted and dropped with great, gulping sobs. Her legs were tan and muscular. She must have run track or maybe played tennis. At least she spoke English fluently and would always know what the people around her were saying. That would make a difference for her. Although . . . sometimes it was best not knowing what was abo
ut to take place. Everything that happened was bad, but the less time spent worrying about specifics, the better.

  The new girl finally lifted her head and looked around. Her face was a puffy, splotched mess. A dribble of blood ran from one corner of her mouth. She blinked, staring at Sofia, the still-sleeping Anastasia, then back to Sofia. She reached toward the back of her neck but didn’t touch it. “Where am I?”

  So many questions. Sofia set her book aside and shrugged. “It’s not the Ritz-Carlton. What’s your name?”

  “I’m Emma Manning, and I want to go home right now. Can you help me?

  “No. You were taken, as we all were.”

  “We can’t get out?”

  “Obviously not, or we wouldn’t be here.” How stupid is this girl?

  Emma’s eyes floated down to Sofia’s book. Fifty Shades of Gray. Svet had given it to her. He thought he was being funny because it was about sexual fetishes. Sofia enjoyed reading. Her grandpa gave her books whenever he could. Now, with nothing else to do during the day besides ballet videos, she read anything she could get her hands on. Every page, sentence, and word, even the tiny print on the bottom of magazine ads.

  Sofia crossed her arms. “The book before this one was The Count of Monte Cristo.” About someone else with real problems

  Emma sniffed and wiped her nose with her hand.

  The American was pretty, but not beautiful. A smattering of freckles covered her face. She hadn’t been tricked into modeling, unless she was very gullible with an inflated opinion of her looks. But she didn’t look strung out or neglected either. If she wasn’t special enough to be a party girl, what was she supposed to be? “How did you end up here?” Sofia asked.

  “I don’t know.” Emma sat up all the way, rubbing her eyes. “I met someone named Damian online. Then we finally met in person at the mall. He gave me a drink and—” She coughed and choked around a sob before she could continue. “—now I’m here.”

  “Ahh. Damian.” Sofia smiled, glad to know he was still around. She hadn’t seen him since they arrived back in Charlotte.

  “Why did he do this to me?”

  Anastasia sat up, arched her back, and reached her arms toward the ceiling. “Money, sex, power. Reason everyone do bad things.”

  “Excuse her English.” Sofia rolled her eyes toward the grimy pipes on the ceiling. She had no idea why Anastasia hadn’t learned to speak as well as she had. They’d both had some English previously in school. Maybe it was because Anastasia spent most of her days sleeping. That was how she coped. “Damian gets paid to bring you here. But he can’t quit, either. It’s not his fault. Damian is one of the nice ones.” He brought them smoothies and chocolate, magazines that were left behind at his gym, and the books that had helped Sofia with her English and made the passage of time in hidden locations bearable. He’d taken them to the movies and shopping for new clothes and makeup several times. He’d never once hurt them. One of his hands was useless and mangled—almost always tucked into a pocket—and somehow it made him seem more like them. Beautiful at first glance but hiding a secret.

  Emma closed her eyes and scrunched her face together. “That man—”

  “That was Svet,” Sofia said.

  “He—he took pictures of me after… after he—” her voice broke as she sobbed.

  “We know what he did.” Anastasia’s voice was a gentle whisper. “Don’t think about or you turn crazy.”

  “He told me if I didn’t do everything he said, he would post them on the internet for everyone to see.”

  Sofia shrugged. “He might. We don’t know everything he does.”

  “I can’t believe this is happening,” Emma cried. “It’s like a horrible, horrible bad dream.”

  “It’s nightmare.” Anastasia stretched her slender arms out wide. “But much real. You see small cut anywhere? Like wrists?”

  “Huh?” Emma asked.

  Anastasia approached Emma. She grasped her arm and examined it closely from wrist to her shoulder.

  “What are you looking for?” Emma asked.

  Anastasia studied Emma’s other arm in the same manner. “While you is drugged . . . they say they put in chip. But not sure if true. We don’t see.”

  “I don’t understand,” Emma said.

  “A microchip for tracking.” Sofia raised her voice until she was almost yelling, as if that would help Emma understand. “So they’ll always know where to find you.”

  Emma looked around the room like a rat trapped in small cage, her eyes roaming from corner to corner, floor to ceiling.

  No way to scratch your way out of here.

  “Where are you from?” Emma wiped tears across her cheek. “Your accent?”

  “Ukraine,” Anastasia answered. “Us both is from Ukraine.” She ran her fingers through her hair and pulled it on top of her head with an elastic band.

  Emma winced as she stood up.

  “You’ll get used to it,” Sofia said. “That stinging pain between your legs. It won’t hurt so much. Eventually.” Which was sort of a lie because there were plenty of things to come that would hurt much worse. Some people got off on feeling pain, while others perversely enjoyed dishing it out. Even after years of working for Stephen, she couldn’t rule out the possibility of unpleasant surprises.

  Emma limped to the door and pulled on the handle. It didn’t budge.

  “It’s always locked,” Sofia said

  Emma was crying again. She rested her back against the door. “How long have you been here?”

  Neither Sofia or Anastasia answered. Sometimes it was better to let the bad news sink in gradually, a little at a time.

  Emma scanned the room again. “What if we have to go to the bathroom?”

  “It’s not always like this.” Sofia heard the apologetic tone in her voice as the indignity of their current location hit her. They’d left the basement and returned many times in the past few months, never staying more than a few days, thank goodness. It was one of the worst locations. “There’s a bathroom with a shower on the other side of this basement. You can knock and ask to use it. If no one is out there and you can’t wait, there’s a bucket in the corner.”

  “What?” Emma’s eyes grew wide and her mouth dropped open. She stood there, face frozen in horror. After all that had happened to her, all she’d just recently experienced—kidnapping, rape, beatings, having her virginity stolen—Sofia didn’t know for sure that Emma had been a virgin, but it seemed likely —after all that, the girl appeared most shocked about having to relieve herself in a bucket.

  “You too good for that?” Sofia glared, which also helped bring Emma’s face into focus. “Then I hope you can hold it a very long time.” She flipped her book back over and struggled to make sense of the words. She hadn’t intended to be so uncompassionate. The new girl was scared, and it wasn’t her fault that she was now, presumably, Sasha’s replacement. It was extremely unlikely that she’d gone and raised her hand and knowingly volunteered to become a sex slave. Yet Sofia couldn’t seem to stop the stream of critical, unkind thoughts from swirling through her mind and slipping off her tongue.

  She returned her attention to her book and read the same paragraph four times. The words were temporarily meaningless and unconnected. When her anger eventually dissipated, she was able to concentrate again. Only when she was immersed in a book was she able to completely forget about her circumstances. At the sound of trudging footsteps, she looked up and saw Emma stumbling toward the bucket. Emma covered her nose and mouth with her hand and spun around, managed a few steps back, and doubled over, retching.

  “No!” shouted Anastasia.

  Emma vomited on the floor.

  Sofia rolled her eyes. “Great. Just effing great. Just what we needed in here. So glad you could join us.”

  Chapter Eight

  Victoria checked into the Hampton Inn, not far from the mall where Emma was last seen. The lobby had a complimentary candy bar, and she couldn’t resist filling a small bag with some
of her favorites.

  The hotel clerk handed over a key card. “You’re lucky we had a cancellation for this suite. We’ve been fully booked for weeks.”

  “I believe it. I had to travel last minute. Finding a room was a challenge. Glad something became available.”

  “A lot of people are visiting Charlotte right now for the football games and events.” She smiled. “Don’t go uptown unless you have to.”

  “Yes. I’ve heard.” Victoria smiled back.

  Inside her suite, she kicked off her shoes and stretched out on top of the bed. She chewed on a piece of red licorice, rubbed her eyes, and groaned.

  The Mannings are a challenge.

  Although she loved all aspects of her job—profiling, investigating, analyzing, apprehending criminals, and helping make sure the worst of them never walked free again—she was relieved to have some time alone. Of course, alone had always been best when it included her dogs, and now—Ned. She missed all of them. She checked the time, wanting to give Ned a call to see how he was doing, but she still had some work to finish.

  She got up to adjust the heat and a whoosh of warm air pushed through the vents. Thinking about what had been done so far, and what else could be done to help bring Emma Manning home, she set her laptop on the writing desk in the living room and logged on. She had two emails from Magda. The first contained the nanny’s account of Emma’s activities from the last week. The second consisted of photos. She’d also included a link to the recent newspaper article featuring Emma and a few other girls from her school on their trip to Jamaica.

  Victoria looked everything over and then typed a note to Sam Miller, one of the intelligence analysts in her office, and one of her favorite colleagues.

  Emma Manning, age 14, disappeared yesterday afternoon around 5:30 pm from a mall in Charlotte, NC. Can you find any useful information using her images?

  If anyone could work magic, it was Sam. He’d been a big help on her last case, never failing to provide the agents with information to move their investigation forward. He was always in a good mood, never flustered. In that way, Detective Connelly and the intelligence analyst seemed to have some similar traits.