by Nella Tyler
“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.
“Sure,” she tells him.
“Alright. I’m Officer Ghent and I just need to get the details of what happened for our report.”
She nods in agreement.
“Okay, so tell me what happened and start from the beginning from when you were on your way to school on the day of the kidnapping,” he instructs her.
“Okay. I was walking to school and this man drove his van up to the sidewalk. Another older man gets out and calls me by name.”
“So he identified you by your full name?”
“Yeah. He said, ‘Sasha Fitzgerald, sweetheart,’ as he walked over to me. I wasn’t sure who he was, so I told him that my mom said I shouldn’t talk to strangers.”
“Alright,” Officer Ghent says to get her to keep going.
“So he says, ‘I know, your mother is a smart woman for keeping you safe.’ And I nod because he’s right. He tells me that he’s my grandfather and that my mother doesn’t like him. So I felt bad for him. He told me that my mother hates him, but he has only wanted to spend some time with me.”
“Okay,” the officer tells her as he scribbles this information down in his notepad.
“I told him that I had to go to school, but he said that my dad told him that he could pick me up and take me back to his house. He said that he had a lot of video games, candy and ice cream that we could enjoy. He told me that it would be only for a few hours and then my dad would pick me up from there.”
Officer Ghent continues writing, only taking breaks to maintain eye contact with Sasha.<
br />
“So the other man helped me into the van and the man who said he was my grandfather let me sit in the front seat. We stopped for ice cream cones, so I thought it was okay.”
I pull her closer to me as tears well up in her eyes. “It’s alright, you’re safe now.”
“When we got there, the place was all stinky, like old people and garbage. The man turned on the television set and left me in the living room. I watched a few cartoons, but I wasn’t sure what was going on. The men went into the kitchen to talk and I got bored.”
“Okay, then what?” He presses her.
“There wasn’t anything to do there, but the older man sat on the couch with me and began asking me a bunch of questions,” she tells us.
“Questions? Like what?” He asks.
“Like how I’m doing in school and if I have a boyfriend,” she says scrunching up her nose.
She continues, “So I told him about my science class project and the A that I got on it and how I passed my math test. He seemed to be interested. I don’t have a boyfriend, they’re gross.”
“So he tried to continue the fake story that he gave you?” he asks her.
“Yeah, pretty much. I knew that it was getting late, though, because the sun went down. So I asked what time my dad was coming to get me. He said that my dad called him and asked him to keep me overnight. I was pretty tired and he gave me something to eat, so I slept on the couch.”
“What happened the next day?” he asks her.
“He kept telling me that he was really lonely and only wanted some company. He told me that my mother has never visited him and he’s sad. I watched TV with him all day and we ate some chips all day.”
“He fed you potato chips for breakfast, lunch, and dinner?” I ask her.
“Yeah. I didn’t mind, I like chips,” she tells me.
“So what happened the following day?” Officer Ghent asks her.
“Well, the next day I started to wonder what was going on. I was missing my mom, my dad, and my sister and I wanted to see them. It was so boring there. So I asked the man if he could just take me to see my dad.”
“How did he reply?” he asks her.
“He said that he was sorry to be the one to tell me, but my dad was in a car accident and was at the hospital. He wanted the old man to watch me until my dad got better.”
As she’s talking, she’s continually wiping the tears from her eyes. Officer Ghent reassures her that she hasn’t done anything wrong, but tears still escape her eyes.
“I was so worried about my dad, but the old man said that he would be fine and that he just needed time to recover. So I waited there with him. The next day, I asked him if he could call my mother to have her come get me.”
“What did he say?” Officer Ghent asks.
“He said that she was at the hospital with my dad, but if she knew I was there with him, she would probably beat my butt.”
“Were the other men present during this time?” he asks.
“No, not until I waited a couple more days and threw a fit at the old man. He was weird and he smelled terrible. I screamed at him that I wanted to see my family, but he just kept telling me that he couldn’t do that. I screamed some more and then he said that he would call my mother and that I would have to face the consequences.”
“Okay, and then what?” the officer asks, writing notes.
“I told him that I didn’t care and that I only wanted to go home. So he made a phone call and said that my mom was on her way to get me. A while later, the two other men show up and they tied me up and put something around my mouth so I couldn’t talk. They put something over my eyes so I couldn’t see, but I could hear them talking.”
“What did they say?”
“Just that they were going to take me somewhere else in case someone gets suspicious and comes to the old man’s door. One of the men said that he was happy to be getting a lot of money for this job, but I don’t know what he was talking about.”
“Did they take you someplace else?” he asks.
“Yeah, they put me in a car or something and we drove for a little while. The one guy carried me up some stairs and I heard a door closing. That place smelled better, but I was hungry and had to pee.”
“Did they let you use the bathroom?” I ask her quietly.
“No, they took the thing off of my eyes and put a big white bucket in the corner of the room. The fat guy said that I could use that to go to the bathroom.”
Tears once again drip from her eyes and she tries desperately to stifle them back, but is unsuccessful.
“I’m going to ask you something and it’s very personal, but you have to be brave, alright?”
She looks up at the officer and nods.
“Did any of those men touch you?”
“They picked me up and grabbed me and shoved me places. What do you mean?” she asks.
The officer looks to me for help and I turn her attention to me.
“What he’s trying to ask is whether or not they touched you in your private areas,” I tell her as gently as possible.
“Ewww no,” she says with a look of horror on her face.
“Okay good,” the officer says. “Alright, so tell me what happened next.”
“They did watch me use this stupid bucket, the jerks,” she exclaims. I cringe as I sit next to her and fathom what we are all going to do to these guys when my father learns of what happened to Sasha.
“Do you think it was just to make sure you wouldn’t get away?” he asks her.
“Probably. I wanted to kick them so hard. They made me sit on the couch and do nothing with my eyes and mouth covered and my hands tied. I was so hungry, but they gave me something to eat, like, once a day.”
“Go on,” he tells her.
“The house was stinky, but it got worse later.”
“What happened then?”
“The house smelled like a skunk and I heard the men laughing in another room. It sounded like they were having a party or something.”
“I guess the guy wanted me to leave, so they put me in this colder place that was smaller, like the van I saw when they picked me up. I smelled something awful in this new place, but it didn’t take me long to realize that they shoved the bucket in there with me.”
“Did they untie you to use the bucket?” he asks.
“Yeah, once or twice, but for the rest of the time, they told me to hold it. I held it once, but I couldn’t do it again. I am so gross,” she tells us, embarrassment flooding her cheeks to a red color.
“Is that when your sister and her boyfriend found you?” he asks her.
“Yeah, they found me where the men left me.”
“Alright, I’ll get this processed and let your mother and father know the outcome. You are one brave little girl, you know that?” he tells her, giving her a reassuring nudge.
“Thanks, but I just can’t wait to get home and take a bath,” she tells him.
“You did a great job, Sasha. I think the cops are going to put those guys away for a very long time,” I tell her.
“Think so?” she asks.
“Yep, I sure do,” I tell her.
“Good, they shouldn’t be allowed to do that stuff,” she tells me.
“You are absolutely right.”
“Do you know why they did this to me?” she asks me.
“No idea, but you can bet that we’re going to find out,” I tell her.
I hold her tightly and she sees something familiar coming our way.
“My mom’s here!” she shouts as she gets up to run toward the car.
Her mother pulls up to the side of the road, parks the car and runs out to hug Sasha. They’re both standing in the middle of the street bawling their eyes out, hugging. I feel full relief as the officer comes back over to talk to me.
“You’re Sasha’s sister?” he asks me.
“Yeah, half-sister, actually,” I tell him.
“I have a few questions for you if you don’t min
d,” he says.
“Sure.”
“What led you to finding your sister here?” he asks.
“I asked a bunch of questions from the members of our motorcycle club to see if they knew anything about her disappearance. One guy apparently kept bragging about coming into a lot of money.”
“Which guy?”
“A guy named Ken Clayton. He kept talking to the new guys about how he was going to hit the mother lode. So I looked into it and sure enough, he got thousands. The other guy, Boris Cardov, also got thousands, so I was curious if there was any connection.”
“And was there?” he asks me.
“Yeah, as it turns out, those deposits were for a job for a man named Seth Vinton. Seth paid off Ken, Boris and the old guy Lester Samson to kidnap my sister.”
“Do you have any idea why they would do that?”
“They did it so that we would all be distracted for a club takeover,” I tell him.
“They wanted your territory?” he asks.
“Yeah, basically,” I say.
“We run a clean motorcycle club, no outlaws, no drugs and no criminals,” I tell him matter-of-factly.
“I’ve heard the name Seth Vinton before,” he says.
“He’s a notorious criminal from around Hayleysville.”
“Makes sense,” he tells me.
“So you followed the trail that led you here?”
“Yeah, with Rodney’s help.”
“Rodney? Your boyfriend over there?” He says, motioning to Rodney.
“Yeah.”
“What’s Rodney’s last name so we can get his statement?”
“Rodney Vinton,” I tell him and wait for the light bulb to go off.
“Vinton, huh? Any relation to our criminal mastermind?” he asks.
“Yeah, Rodney is Seth Vinton’s son. He came to our club to get away from the criminals in his father’s club. He was a huge help in all of this.”
“Alright, great. Any idea where Boris Cardov, Lester Samson and Ken Clayton are now?” he asks.
“No clue,” I lie.
“Then how did you know that Mr. Cardov wasn’t home tonight?”
For a moment I panic, thinking I’ve been caught in my lie, but manage to quickly conjure up a response. “Rodney and I watched him leave the place.”
“Oh, alright. Okay, well we will be in touch with you and your family soon. This will probably go to the prosecutor’s office and you all will have to testify in front of a jury.”
