“We’re done looking,” Joel said.
“What’s with the gun, Joel?”
“Get her away from him, now.”
They looked over the wood pile and saw us. Julia rushed forward. “Emily?”
“Hey Julia. Look, would you tell him to put the gun down before he shoots someone?”
“I’m not putting the gun down until Emily is safely away from her attacker.”
“Attacker? Emily, are you okay?”
“I’m fine, Julia. This is Ryker, he’s the one who saved me when I fell in the river. I came back here to find him, I wanted to thank him, and I needed some space and some time to think about a few things. He didn’t kidnap me or attack me or hurt me in any way.”
“She’s lying,” Joel said. “He raped her.”
My mind snapped back to the night before, to the snap that had alerted Ryker and interrupted our sex. There had been nothing outside, no coyotes after the chickens, no bears, no wolves, and we’d curled up, riding the last of the adrenaline high to a place of intense passion.
My eyes narrowed. “When did you find me Joel?”
“What do you mean, when? Right now, this morning. Now get away from him or I’ll shoot him.”
“You care too much about your own hide to shoot a man in cold blood,” I said. “Especially in front of witnesses you might not be able to buy off. Why do you think he raped me? When did you find me? What did you see?”
He lowered the gun, finally, and shouted, “I’ve been looking for you for days, do you understand? I’ve been terrified that you jumped in that river and committed suicide. And instead I find you naked in the arms of another man! He raped you, it had to be rape.”
“Joel were you spying on us last night?
His face shifted from agony to anger. “Did I see you cheating on me with the creep who kidnapped you? Yes, I did, but don’t make it sound like I was …”
“Like you were watching her and getting off?” Julia said. There was a crowd gathering behind her now as other search parties were drawn to us by the shouting.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Joel said. “I’m not a freak! I saw her and I walked away. It was dark, I couldn’t rescue her alone in the dark.”
“I’m talking about the videos, Joel. You’re sick, you know that?” She spat on the ground at his feet. “Did you really think we wouldn’t find out about it? There was no ‘old bet’, Emily. Joel was asking Buddy to record the two of you having sex together. They recorded me and Buddy too, more than once. They have a sick little site where they post the videos so all their rich perverted friends can watch. I downloaded the videos as proof in case they deleted them.”
“But it was the middle of the night, in the dark, in the middle of nowhere how …”
Julia handed me her phone. The screenshot was dark with strange glowy-green lines. Night vision, they recorded the fucking thing with a night vision camera. I pressed play and could hear the rustle of leaves and then Joel’s familiar voice.
“Emily, relax, okay? No one is going to see us. You’re beautiful.” The camera panned, blurring the image, and came to rest on two figures.
My laughter. “You can barely see me.” Now the image zoomed until I could clearly see myself and Joel on a blanket, naked. On the screen a familiar scene unfolded. Everyone could hear Joel but only I could see the screen. I should have stopped it, should have turned it off, but I had to see just how much the video showed. I was too intent on the screen to even be embarrassed by the number of people standing around listening to our sex tape. Our already very public sex tape.
“I don’t have to see you, I know you’re beautiful. … I want you to kiss me,” he said, “Kiss me here and finish getting me hard … Yes, like that … That’s it, eat it, good girl.”
The camera zoomed in more, right on the side of my face. Even with the night vision setting I was clearly recognizable. “You like that cock, don’t you. Oh fuck yes. Fuck you’re good at this. Oh, take it deeper, deep throat my cock you little black tease … Fuck my cock with your mouth. Keep taking it in your throat. Fuck yes. Fuck, like that … Don’t stop what you’re doing don’t fucking stop … You like that, don’t you. You want to be fucked ..”
Now the camera panned down my body for a moment, catching Joel in the act of fingering me, and then back to my face. “You don’t know what you want more, that cock in your mouth or shoved up your cunt. Maybe you’d like two of us? Maybe You want to be fucked in the mouth and the cunt? … Don’t fucking stop. I want to feel the back of your throat every time. I want you to fuck my cock with your hot wet mouth … Wow, Emily you’re fucking amazing. Come here …” He swung my body around.
“Fuck you’re so tight and wet tonight, just the way I like you … Fuck, I would love to take your ass tonight, babe. Your cunt is so fucking tight, I bet your ass is even better.”
“Joel, it hurts.”
“Take it, oh, take my cock.”
I didn’t see or hear the rest because Ryker took two long strides and punched Joel hard enough in the jaw to send him reeling. I handed the phone back to Julia, who hit stop, and rushed to Ryker’s side, putting my hand on his arm. “Yeah, I want to do that too, but I don’t need you getting arrested for assault.”
“Then he’d better get the fuck out of here, now.”
“You waited until the end of the video to punch him?” I said.
“You said it hurt and he didn’t stop. Everything else he did was wrong too, but that’s too much. He disrespected you, Emily. That last part was rape, from the sound of it.”
“I never raped her,” Joel whined. “She wanted it!” He stayed down, which was probably smart, and he was holding his face.
“Except when she changed her mind and didn’t want it anymore,” Ryker said.
At that moment the forest rangers and police joined the crowd of searchers who had come with Julia and Joel to rescue me from my kidnapper.
“Are you Emily?” asked a man in a state trooper uniform.
“Yes sir.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No sir.”
“Is this man holding you against your will?”
“No sir.”
“Do you know how scared your family was?”
“I can guess. I’m sorry. I wasn’t really thinking straight, I just came out here to sort a few things out and I was scared that if I told anyone where I was going that someone would either talk me out of it or come after me and try to drag me home. I guess I should have found some way to tell my parents I was safe and not to worry. I’m really sorry. If it means anything, we were just on our way to tell everyone what was going on.”
“You need to make a full statement so we can officially end this search. And your parents are with the officers back at the search’s start point, they’ll want to talk to you.”
“I need to press charges as well,” I said. “Someone has been circulating a pornographic video of me and I didn’t give anyone permission to film me, or to post any videos of me anywhere.”
The officer’s eyes went wide. “Well, uh, yeah, we can take your statement for that too.”
“Emily, don’t do this! You don’t want to press charges.” Joel scrambled to his feet and then scrambled back away from Ryker. “What about me? He punched me? Isn’t that assault?”
The officer looked at each of us in turn, put two and two together, and looked at Joel. “Son, you can try to press charges but it looks like you got no more than you deserved.” He waved over another officer and pointed at Joel. “Hold on to him, I’ll need to question him when we get back to the city.”
“Yes sir.”
“Officer, if you could have everyone disperse, the crowd is making me nervous and they aren’t really needed anymore, are they?”
The officer nodded and turned away from us. “Everybody please make your way back to the search camps to collect your things and then make your way to the base camp. Flag down the boats to move everyone back up river more
quickly.”
“Boat?” I squeaked.
“You had people very worried, Emily,” the officer said. “Come on, I’ll get you two to the base camp and your parents.”
Ryker and I grabbed the packs and followed the officer to the river bank. Sure enough there was a boat waiting for us. When we arrived upriver, my mom was rushing over before I was even on dry land again.
“Emily, we were so worried about you,” she said, wrapping her arms around me.
“I’m sorry Mom, I should have left a note or something. I’m fine, I promise.”
“I’m not fine!” She started sobbing.
My father joined us and put a hand on his wife’s shoulder. “We’ll drive you home,” he said. “They took your car back to the city already.”
“Actually, could you drive us to a ranch nearby?”
“Us?”
For the first time they seemed to actually see Riker hovering behind me. I suppose they originally dismissed him as one of the searchers, but he hadn’t dispersed like the others had. Now they stared at him.
“Who are you?” my father said.
“My name’s Ryker, I rescued Emily from the river.”
“Well then we thank you for that.” My dad turned to me. “Emily, what’s going on here? Why did you come out here?”
“I’m sorry, I just needed some time to sort out what I wanted from my life and I’ve finally decided.”
“So you’ll go back to school in the fall?”
“No Dad, I’m sorry. I’m not going to school.”
“You’re not moving in with Joel, are you?” my mom said.
“No, never, not a chance in hell.”
“Oh good, he’s a nice young man but I’m not ready for you to leave home just yet. Silly, isn’t it. You’re a grown woman an all …”
“Mom, I’m moving in with Ryker.”
“What?! You’ve known him all of a week, maybe less, and you think you’re moving in with him? This isn’t a fairy tale, Emily, you don’t meet a prince and fall in love at first sight and live happily ever after.”
“So what am I supposed to do?” I stepped out of my mom’s embrace. “Go home, marry Joel, the sick bastard who videotaped me having sex with him and posted it online? Have a bunch of rich perverted boys and rich spoiled girls? Spend my days getting my nails and my hair done and gossiping with other rich useless women?”
My mom’s mouth hung open, my dad said, “We don’t want you to do something that makes you unhappy …”
“But you don’t want me to be happy either. Mom’s right, I’m a grown woman. If you won’t drive us to the ranch someone will. We’ll be by this evening to collect my things. I’m doing this because it’s the right thing for me, and for the first time in years I’m sure of what I want.”
My parents stared at each other for a long moment and then my mother looked down and away. My father sighed. “I’m sorry sweetie. You’re on your own.” He wrapped an arm around my mother’s shoulders and led her away.
“I guess we have even more in common now,” I said as Ryker stepped up beside me.
“I’m sorry, Emily. I didn’t want this to happen.”
Our next stop was the state trooper who had fetched his supervisor and a police officer from the city and a park ranger. They all listened and took notes as I told them about the kayaking, falling in the river, and Ryker rescuing me. I told them about Ryker leading me back and how he was a perfect gentlemen the whole time. I left out his gruff attitude and the fact that we made out under the stars though. I told them about coming out here to talk to him and do some soul searching, about getting lost and Ryker finding me, and about spending the last few days at his cabin getting to know him and his lifestyle. I apologized over and over again for worrying everyone and dragging them all out here to look for me. I swore up and down that Ryker had not kidnapped me or held me against my will or raped me. When they were satisfied with my story they all left, except the police from the city.
“We were told you wanted to make a statement against Joel Williams,” he said. “Something about spreading pornography?”
I nodded. “While we were out here, the night before we went kayaking, he wanted to have sex outside. I willingly, if grudgingly, agreed to the sex. Later, like a few hours ago, I found out that his friend Buddy who was camping with us recorded us having sex together with a night vision camera. The video was, according to Buddy’s girlfriend Julia, uploaded to a private site where Joel and his friends could watch it. I didn’t give permission for him to record us, or to post it. I don’t want that video online.”
“Nothing ever dies on the internet,” the officer said, “But we’ll do our best. We’ll talk to Joel, Buddy, and Julia and get their statements as well. Will you be available to testify if this goes to court?”
I looked at Ryker who stepped up and said, “She’ll be living with me, out here. Best way to get a hold of me is to leave a message with one of the ranchers. I’ll give you all the information.”
“Thank-you. I’ll be in touch.”
“Oh, wait, is there someone who can give us a ride?”
“I can.” We turned to see Julia coming over with a bag over her shoulder. “I’ll give you a lift, wherever you want to go.”
I smiled. “Thanks Julia.”
The ranch wasn’t far by car but it probably would have taken us the rest of the day to hike it. We were all quiet, except for Ryker’s directions, until we pulled into the driveway. Julia put the car in park and said, “Thanks for pressing charges, I wasn’t brave enough but now …” She took a deep breath. “I’m leaving too, I’m going to school out of state next fall.”
“Good-bye Julia, thanks for telling me the truth, and for the ride.”
“Yeah, good-bye.”
We got out and she drove away. I stared after her until Ryker said, “Are you going to miss her?”
“She was nice enough but we weren’t really friends. The only thing we had in common was that our boyfriends were friends, and now I’m not dating Joel and she’s not dating Buddy.” I shrugged. “So what’s next?”
As if in answer a door banged open and a man in jeans and a filthy shirt jogged down the side steps of the house. “Ryker, I didn’t expect you back so soon, you just left a few days ago. And since when do you come in the front yard?”
“Since things got a little complicated. Jeremy, this is Emily.”
“I’d shake but I’m filthy. I heard about you, you’re the one they were searching for.”
“That’s me,” I said.
Ryker set the packs down. “Some smoked meat, and some coyote pelts for Justin. I had some damn good hunting on the way back to the cabin.”
“I’ll say. I’ll run inside and grab some cash.”
“And your truck keys,” Ryker said. “We have to run to the city for a few things.”
“Why didn’t that … whoever that was, drive you back?”
“Because she lives in the city and didn’t want to make the trip back here to drop us off again.”
“Us, huh?” He stared at me for a moment. “You sure you want to live in the bush? You look pretty soft to me.”
“Oh, she’s stubborn, and a survivor,” Ryker said. “She’ll do fine.”
“Then let me get the cash and the keys and get you two on your way. I’ll have my wife air the camper, you two can stay here overnight tonight before hiking back to the cabin.”
“Thanks.”
We drove back to the city and stopped at the bank where I withdrew, in cash, my entire life savings. The cashier was surprised, especially since there was several thousand dollars there, but I didn’t want to have to borrow a truck every time we needed cash. There was a bank in the small ranching town, but it was a different bank and there would have been some pretty hefty fees to withdraw through them.
“We’ll put it in the bank in town,” Ryker said. “Then it’s just a hike away.”
“Then let’s go get my clothes next,” I said, the sta
ck of bills tucked away at the bottom of my purse.
The clothes were harder. My parents had beat us back to the city and they wouldn’t let Ryker in the house. Of course, once I was inside my mother followed me everywhere, begging me to stay, to attend school, to reconsider throwing my life away for some stranger. I packed everything into garbage bags, even the stuff that would be useless where I was going. I was sure I could sell what I didn’t need.
When I was packed my mom stood in the doorway and said, “You’re not going. You can’t. I won’t let you.”
My father came over and gently led her away. “We don’t have to like it, we don’t have to approve, but we can’t hold her here against her will. Let her go, dear.”
My mom broke down crying again and I moved quickly, shuttling all the bags out onto the step where Ryker grabbed them and hauled them to the truck.
After a quick shopping trip for food and some outdoor gear for me, including new hiking boots, proper rain gear, and heavy work gloves, we were headed out of the city again. As we drove I could see Ryker relaxing. I put a hand on his thigh.
“We don’t have to go back there.”
“Oh, we’ll have to go back. Your legal case, remember?”
“Joel’s young and rich and white. Do you really think it will go to court?”
“I sure as hell hope so. Remember, Julia was victimized too.”
“Well, if it does, you don’t have to come with me.”
“I’m not letting you face that bastard alone.”
“Thanks.”
There was only one last stop, this one at the bank in town. The manager was more than happy to open an account for me, even if it was very close to closing time when we walked in with over five grand in crisp, bank-issued, hundreds.
With all of our errands taken care of for the day we drove back to the ranch.
CHAPTER 4
Jeremy and his wife Katy had dinner waiting for us, stew and biscuits and steamed veggies and salad followed by pie and ice cream. I was going to miss ice cream. Then Katy gave me a tour of the house and the property while Jeremy and Ryker talked about animal populations and other manly wilderness details. It was all beautiful but I was tired and so I was very happy when Ryker rescued me from my hostess and started leading me out to the trailer.
Blind Date with the President Page 9
