“I asked you to let us do our job. Now, here you are in another worst section of town, taking your life in your hands.”
“If it was your friend,” answered Sabrina, her back going up, “would you just sit and wait? I don’t think so. If we don’t find her soon, it’ll be too late. So while we appreciate your warnings, we’re going to continue to look for her.”
He nodded, then looked at Mo.
“What happened to her?”
Lie and tell him she bumped into a door or tell the truth? There didn’t seem to be any reason to hold back, so I said, “We ran into one of Ludwick’s goons. Ludwick is involved in this in some way.”
“I’m sure he is,” answered Miller. “We just have no proof. So where is this Richard guy?”
“He went into the casino. He evidently goes by the name of Dickie now.”
“Ahhh, Dickie,” said Miller. “That name has come up a few times recently in connection with various crimes. Don’t know anything about him though.”
“He’ll be the biggest guy in there,” I said.
Miller waved his officers to follow him and they fanned out and entered the casino. Nothing happened for about ten minutes and finally Miller and his crew emerged from the stink.
“Gone,” he said. “He must’ve been tipped off by your pal, Ludwick’s man, and scooted out the back. As you can imagine, no one in there knows anything about anything.”
I thought Mo was going to cry. Heck, I thought I was going to cry.
“I’m sorry,” Miller said. “I can’t stop you from looking for her, but I ask that you at least try to be careful. Now get in your car and get out of here before we all get mugged.”
Miller’s radio made a noise, so he answered it. After a moment, he ran to his car, again telling us to get out of there before we ran into trouble. The police cars all took off, heading to some trouble spot. We were left alone.
We were quiet as we walked back to our car.
We had reached a dead end.
Chapter 13
What now? We were pretty sure that Richard (“Dickie”) would stay clear of the casino. We were also certain that Ludwick would keep a low profile for a while. So what was our next step?
I was about to start the car when Sabrina said, “Hold on a minute.”
Mo and I looked at her quizzically.
She was looking out the window at a street person leaning against the wall of the Four-Leaf Clover.
“That guy has been there the whole time we have. He probably doesn’t move from that spot all day. I wonder if he’s seen Peep.”
“Only one way to find out,” I said. I hit the button and my window went down. I got his attention and motioned him over. I chose that option over going to him, thinking he might be more comfortable doing it this way. In this part of the city people approached cars all the time—getting handouts, picking up women, drug deals, etc.—whereas if we approached him, he might look like an informant, which could get him killed.
He slowly shuffled over. He was a short black man of indeterminate age wearing a ratty brown sweater, brown corduroy pants, and a brown skullcap that was more holes than cap. Frankly, I thought he was dressed for winter. In direct contrast to the rest of his ensemble was a pair of bright yellow, brand new, Nike sneakers.
“Wuzzup?” he asked when he finally reached the car.
“You look like you stand in that spot a lot,” I said. “We’re looking for someone and were wondering if you’d seen her.”
He was quiet. He was waiting. I pulled out a hundred dollar bill and handed it to him. He quickly pocketed it.
“What’s she look like?”
Mo held up her phone, displaying a recent picture of Peep.
The man squinted in the bright sun, then motioned for Mo to give him the phone. She handed it to him and he held it in his grimy hands. I was going to have to remind Mo to disinfect it when she got it back.
“Looks like Angel. A little younger maybe and different hair, but definitely Angel. Haven’t seen her in a long time though.”
Mo looked crestfallen.
“No,” I said. “This girl disappeared a couple of days ago.”
He shrugged. “If you say so.”
“The girl we’re looking for might have been with a big guy—ex-football player.”
“Dickie.”
We all perked up at once.
“You know Dickie?” I asked.
He made a face. “I try to steer clear of him. Mean bastard.”
“But you saw him with this girl?” I asked.
“Angel.”
“No, not Angel. The girl in the picture.”
He shrugged again and handed the phone back to Mo. He turned to go back to his corner roost.
“Wait,” I called after him.
He turned and shuffled back, not looking pleased.
He said, “You asked me if I knew this girl. I told you I did, but you don’t believe me. What do you want?”
Sabrina took over.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “We’re just a little confused. The girl we’re looking for just disappeared with Dickie, but you say you saw her a long time ago. How long ago?”
He seemed more willing to talk to Sabrina. She had a way about her that obviously Mo and I didn’t have.
He scrunched up his face as he thought. “Last time ... maybe three years ago. She was around for a couple of years. Heard she went uptown. Got out of this shit hole. Dumped Dickie, too. He was pissed. Made me happy. Angel was a good girl. Didn’t need to be with Dickie. Uptown now. Dickie can’t touch her. Heard she had some influential clients.” He said “influential” by sounding out each syllable slowly.
Sabrina looked back at Mo.
“Could it have been Andi?”
Mo nodded slowly.
“Maybe, I suppose.”
“Do you still see Dickie?” asked Sabrina.
“Time to time. Hangs out at the Four-Leaf. A lotta shit goes on there.”
“Do you know if Dickie works for a guy named Ludwick?” I asked.
Silence. I handed him another hundred. In the movies they always used twenties. Maybe I was just a soft touch.
“Everyone works for Ludwick. Another bad dude. Besides gambling, he’s into drugs and girls.”
“Hookers?” I asked.
“Some. Mostly import/export. Brings girls in and sells ‘em. Got a lot of buyers. Sometimes sells U.S. girls, pretty ones. If your friend looks like Angel you better find her fast or she’ll be gone a long way from here.”
“Why are you telling us all this?” asked Sabrina.
“You paying me.” He hesitated. “And Dickie beat me up once. Happy to get back at him.” He started to turn, then looked back. “Be careful of him. He’s smart and he’s mean. He’s gotta know you’re here, and if he does, he’ll get you. And if you’re waiting for him to come out, don’t watch the Four-Leaf, watch the one next door. They’s connected somewhere, cuz people like Dickie always go in one and out the other. Stay ahead of the cops that way.”
I pulled out another hundred and handed it to him.
“Thanks. We appreciate it. What’s with the yellow sneakers?”
“Someone gave ‘em to me this morning. They’ll be gone tomorrow. Someone’ll take ‘em from me.”
He turned to go, then turned back.
“A word of advice. Don’t trust nobody. I mean nobody.”
He shuffled back to his post against the wall.
Chapter 14
Emma felt the van pulling over to the side of the road and slowing down again. How many more times were they going to do that? She had no idea how long the trip had been so far—a day and a half? Two days? She wasn’t sure any of it had been on highways and there had been a lot of twists and turns, so she couldn’t get a sense as to how far they had actually gone or in what general direction.
Why them? Why were the five of them chosen? And of all places, in a small town in Oregon. Who even knew they were there? Those thoughts had
gone over and over in her mind since they had been abducted. She had never been so scared in her life. She had no illusions. For a fourteen-year-old, she had a pretty clear view of the world. They had been chosen because of their age. Some men liked young girls. She shuddered at the thought. It couldn’t end like this. And yet, she saw it all the time on the news. Girls disappeared and were found dead weeks later. But that was someone else. It couldn’t happen to them. It didn’t matter. She had a feeling that death wasn’t going to be the worst thing they were going to face.
She pulled her knees up to her chin and hugged her legs. All of a sudden she was having trouble breathing again. She had been able to hold it in check for much of the trip, but she had a feeling the trip was coming to the end. She had never been more stressed in her life.
“Where do you think we are?” whispered Lucy from beside her.
Emma hated it when her friends asked her questions like that. How could she possibly know? But she also knew that Lucy was just as scared as she was. The question was just a way for Lucy to hear a voice. The other three girls hadn’t said a word in hours. Emma knew they weren’t asleep. They were probably bordering on catatonic.
“I don’t know,” Emma answered as she tried to take deep breaths. She reached out and took Lucy’s hand. Of the other four girls, Lucy was her best friend. They had done everything together from the time they were babies. They were only two weeks apart in age. In fact, their parents had been in the same birthing class together.
“I’m so scared,” said Lucy.
“I am too,” answered Emma, “but we have to try not to be. If we’re going to find a way to escape, we have to have clear heads.”
“I know.”
Lucy went silent. Emma reached over and pulled her close.
“We’ll make it out of this,” she whispered, not necessarily believing it herself.
The opening of the back door to the van jarred them back to the moment.
“Okay, girls.” The man with the beard said it in a sing-song voice. “We need you quiet and not moving around for a while, so I’m going to put some tape over your mouths, your wrists, and your ankles. It’ll only be for an hour or so. When we stop, we will carry you out of the van. When we get inside the building, I will take off the tape. Understand?”
The girls all nodded. What other choice did they have?
A second man came in and helped with the process. When the bearded man came to Emma, he put the tape on her mouth and taped her wrists together behind her back. It was really uncomfortable and her shoulders hurt being in that position. When he finished taping her ankles together, he pushed her knees apart and put his hand on her crotch. She squirmed in fear and disgust. There was nothing else she could do. He unzipped her jeans and put his hand in and touched her through her panties with his fingers. Nobody had ever touched her there before. This wasn’t what she had imagined in her fantasies. She screamed through the tape and began to flail about. The man quickly removed his hand and stood up. Again, she could see the bulge in his pants.
“We’re not allowed to play with the merchandise,” he said with an evil smile, “but they didn’t say I couldn’t touch it.”
He jumped out of the van. As he was about to close the door, he said, “Now you girls be good, okay?” The door slammed.
Emma began to cry. Lucy nuzzled up against her in an effort to comfort her friend, but there was no comfort, just abject fear. If his hand being there had been so unpleasant, what would the other thing be like? Slowly the crying subsided, only to be replaced with anger. No, she wasn’t going to let that happen to her. It would be far worse than death. She was going to find a way to escape, and if she couldn’t, she was going to die. But not this. In some way, she was actually glad that the bearded man had touched her. It stirred up the hatred that was brewing inside her for these men. His hand on her had made it all real, and the reality of it was sickening.
She heard noises outside the van. They were going through a town. No, a city. It was loud. It almost sounded like a circus—voices, music, and all kinds of weird beeping sounds. She had heard it before. It was all familiar to her. Las Vegas! A year before, her parents had taken the family on a road trip to the southwest. They had seen Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam, and had stayed a night in Las Vegas. Yes, she knew this sound.
The noise dissipated the further they drove. They were stopping frequently, probably for traffic lights, thought Emma. She could still hear music, but the sound of the crowds was no longer as loud. Finally, the van stopped, then backed up. She heard someone whistle and the van stopped again.
Emma heard crying coming from a few of the girls. They were all missing home desperately. Tears came once again to Emma’s eyes and she was having trouble breathing again. With the tape over her mouth, she suddenly panicked. When she got like that, she had to breathe through her mouth, and now she couldn’t. She tried to calm herself down and breathe through her nose, but it wasn’t working. The panic was taking over. She started rolling, hoping she could catch the tape on something and rip it off her mouth. It didn’t work. She couldn’t breathe! In her panic, she began to flop around the floor of the van. The couple of times she saw her friends, they were staring at her, wide-eyed. Only Lucy was aware of her panic attacks. Emma knew she was scaring them as much as she was scaring herself, but she had no control over that. She had no control over anything.
The back door opened. A dim light shone in.
“Hey, what’s going on?” It was the bearded man. “I told you to be quiet.”
But Emma couldn’t stop. The panic was the worst she had ever experienced. She couldn’t get any air at all and she was about to pass out. The man suddenly realized what was going on and grabbed her. He swung her over his shoulder.
The next thing Emma knew was the tape being ripped from her mouth. She took in little bits of air and she could feel her heart pounding. After a couple of minutes, she was able to take in gasps of air and she felt herself calming down. She looked around. She was on the floor in a room with no windows. There was furniture, and wood paneling on the walls, but it felt and smelled like a basement to her. The last of her friends was carried in and the door was slammed shut. It had a metallic sound—the kind of door one didn’t escape through.
Someone pulled her hair back—not violently, but firmly. She looked up into the eyes of an older man. The eyes were examining her from top to bottom.
“Get up,” he said softly. He helped her up almost gently. He motioned to one of the other men, who brought out a knife and cut the tape holding Emma’s wrists and ankles. The other girls were now standing up as well.
“You all smell,” he said. “There’s a shower through that door. Take turns. Make the showers fast, but make sure you wash your hair. There are towels and robes in there. When you’re done, put on a robe and come back out here.”
One of the men led Lucy in first. She looked back at Emma with fear on her face. Emma nodded to her to comply. The man stood just inside the door to the bathroom and snuck glances at her as she undressed quickly and stepped into the shower.
One by one the others followed suit. Emma’s other three friends still hadn’t said a word. Emma could hear Rebecca crying in the shower. While they each showered, one of the men gathered their clothes and threw them in a bag. All they could wear were the robes. When they were all done, the man had them stand in a line while he looked them over. Emma thought he looked like a professional man. He was older and wasn’t dressed like the others—he had on a suit and tie—and was well-built, like someone who frequented the gym.
“Take your robes off.”
The girls gave out gasps.
“No,” said Emma. “Why are you doing this?”
He gave her an exasperated look.
“Just take it off. Don’t make me rip it off you.”
“No!” cried Lucy.
“We’re going to get along much better if you just do as I say. But I only need four of you, so this little one over
here,” he said, pointing to Rebecca, “can either be a bonus to me or she can be a penalty to you. I really don’t care. If you girls cross me, she will suffer, and suffer badly.” Rebecca let out a cry and almost passed out. One of the men held her up. “Every time you disobey me, she gets cut. It won’t take you long to come around to my way of thinking, but by then your friend will be pretty disfigured. Do you want that? If you obey, she can go where you go. So let’s try it again. Take your robes off.”
This time they did it without hesitation.
Emma had never felt so embarrassed in her life. She tried to cover her breasts with her arms, but was told to leave her arms hanging by her sides. She was completely exposed … and completely humiliated. She tried not to look at her friends, but she could hear them all crying. The older man was telling one of them to stand up straight. Besides her embarrassment Emma was freezing, standing there without any clothes on and her hair still wet.
She expected the worst, but was surprised when the older man went along the line looking each girl over in a clinical sort of way. He touched certain areas, but it wasn’t a groping touch. She suddenly realized that he was inspecting them like he would a herd of cattle. The other men, however, were staring at them with completely different looks.
“Okay, put your robes on.” He turned to the bearded man. “Let me know when their hair is dry and brushed. Then we’ll get the pictures taken and these girls can get some sleep.”
“Okay, Mr. Ludwick. We’ll take care of it.”
The older man climbed the stairs and was gone. The bearded man threw them each a towel and told them to dry their hair. He pointed to a table full of brushes and said, “then brush your hair real pretty for the pictures.”
As Emma picked up her towel, she just hoped that these men had left some clue and the FBI was right behind, ready to bust them.
But she knew they weren’t.
Chapter 15
Vegas Lies ( Lies Mystery Thriller Series Book 3) Page 6
