Struggling against the force that held her, Tiffany could hardly move her head. She shouted, but only the tiniest grunt escaped past the gloved hand. As her body shook, the restraining arm didn’t move, but the fingers of the hand on her stomach, her abdomen, and her hip pressed in, exploring.
She tried to kick backwards but she was held too tight, forced against the hot, hard body of her captor. She felt the taut ropes of his abs, the tough thighs pressed against the soft cheeks of her ass. Between them, a thick, uncoiling swelling pressed against her.
As she shook and tried to shout, she felt a quick, rhythmic pulsing in the body of her attacker. He was chuckling. It amused him to feel her desperate attempts to kick herself free.
He hasn’t made a move for the purse under my arm, but her phone, her money, her cards—well, Daddy’s cards—they were all in there. That must be what they’re after. Tiffany was sure that was where this was headed. She’d hand the purse over if they’d only let her.
Daddy will yell about it, and make it all out to be my fault, she thought. Give me endless lectures about being irresponsible and not taking enough care. Then the insurance would pay anyway. So what? No biggie.
Rapid footsteps thudded from behind and the blond biker stood in front of her. His hood was up and he had a red and black bandana over his nose and mouth. How much more perfect could it be? She is attacked in the car park and the biker is right there to rescue her.
Only he doesn’t rescue her. First he looks hard in her eyes and puts his gloved finger to his pursed lips. Her eyes are wide and afraid now, but she makes a rapid nod. She felt the hot breath of the biker who held her from behind.
He whispered into her ear, “No clever moves, baby. Just co-operate and you won’t get hurt.” When the hand came off her face, the blond biker strapped tape across her mouth.
She tried to shake her head, to tell him, It’s OK, I’ll do what you say, but he grabbed her by the jaw. His pale blue eyes burned over the top of his shades. His finger went to his lips again. A tear threatened to fall. He paused to brush it away with his thumb, giving her time to catch a slow breath through her nose.
He turned her by her shoulders. He took her shopping bags and she heard him put them down. As she was turning, she tilted her head to look for security cameras. Someone would see this. She’d be out of this in no time. These assholes were going down.
She located the camera. It was right above her head and there was no way it would have a view of what was happening here. They had chosen their spot. They knew what they were doing. Her hands were pulled behind her back and a tight plastic strap vibrated as it tightened around her wrists.
A dark van pulled up sharply by the pay station and another biker got out. It was the one from behind the pillar when she left the food court. A girl in denim and leather with big shades covering her face and a hoodie up appeared with her hand out.
The blond biker turned her again to face him.
His voice grated low, barely more than a scratchy whisper. She felt the strength and intensity when he said, “Car keys, parking ticket.” He pointed at the purse under her arm.
She nodded. She tried not to let show that she was shaking. He took the purse from her, didn’t yank the strap, and snapped the purse open, but held the opening towards her so she could see.
He found the pocket in the side where the ticket was, and her car key. He handed them to the girl. He snapped her bag closed, and put it back under Tiffany’s arm. His eyes were hard and cruel, but his movements were soft and kind.
The girl went to the pay station as Tiffany was bundled through the side door onto a bench in the back of the van. The bench looked like it came out of the back of a long-dead Chrysler sedan. Smelled like it, too. The partition between the front and the back of the van had a scratched, milky Plexiglas window.
The brown-haired biker, the one who had grabbed her from behind, slid in to drive and the blond biker sat up front with him. The other one climbed in the back after Tiffany.
He sat on a crate and watched her as she lay across the bench in the darkness. She couldn’t see his eyes behind the narrow black shades. Tiffany fought the rising beat of panic in her chest.
The engine started. At the same time, from the far side of the parking level, Tiffany heard her little turquoise Mini chirrup its cheery greeting to the key. The van moved, and Tiffany was wedged into the crook of the bench, her arms twisted and cramped under her.
When she struggled to get less painfully uncomfortable, the biker in back with her lunged forward. Her head jerked as he slapped her across the jaw, and he grabbed her thigh, hard. He held a big, balled fist up close to her eyes. She couldn’t see anything of his face, just the bandana and the shades. She couldn’t make out any expression or clue.
He was black-haired. He had straps on his biceps, fingerless leather gloves on his hands, and a black bandana over his face. Her first instinct was to just nod and comply, but she didn’t see how she could go any distance with her arm hurting so much.
She raised her eyebrows and twitched her head towards her shoulder, keeping her eyes on the featureless face in front of her, hoping that he would understand. He was still.
Then his hand jerked her thigh, pulling her legs apart. Her tiny skirt rode up. The tops of her torn hold-ups and the bottom of her sheer black knickers were exposed.
She was yanked onto her back. His grip on her thigh was rough, and his fist was still at her face. The head in front of her cocked to the left. It was a question. Better? Her arms were less painful now. She nodded, once. She tried to wriggle to get her skirt down. The fist held closer to her face, so she stopped.
As the van lurched through the barrier, out of the car park and into the sunshine,
Everybody’s wearing shades, she realized, Nobody talks. It gave her hope. They don’t want me to be able to identify them. That means they at least have a plan that involves not killing me.
Chapter 2
From where she was, lying on the bench, nobody would be able to see her if they looked into the truck. Through the misty window, she could hardly see anything but sky. Unrecognizable tops of buildings blurred by above.
Bumping on the bench, she could only breathe through her nose. The stale air and the old, male stench beneath it stifled Tiffany. The plastic tie chafed and made her wrists sore. Her arms began to ache. They became heavy and painful.
To distract herself, she thought about the direction of the light as the van moved. She thought she could get an idea at least of what direction they were traveling, but, this time of day, there weren’t enough shadows for any clue.
Fuck, I can't figure this out, she thought. Misery welled up inside her. I'm completely lost. These fuckers can do whatever they want with me and no one’s ever going to find me.
With the eyeless black sunglasses watching her, her despair rose like a smothering fog. She told herself that was a bad thing, and that she had to stay positive. Sadly, it didn’t do her much good.
They rattled and slewed along in silence. The one thing Tiffany thought she could detect was that the sounds outside, of people, horns, traffic, and general city noise, were fading. The air was becoming drier. They were leaving town, and heading out into the scrubland.
After a long time on a straight road, the van veered off to the left. The road became progressively bumpier until the wheels began to skip and the driver had to slow down. A couple of minutes of that and then they veered again, onto a smooth surface, and then, suddenly, into darkness.
Tiffany’s eyes couldn’t adjust. She guessed they must be inside a building. The van lurched to a stop. When the engine cut and the doors opened, she heard a big, dry echo. The two men got out of the front of the van and shut the doors behind them.
She lifted her head from the bench. Immediately the biker hit her with a slap. Her head snapped from side to side and her face stung. He rapped his knuckle once on the Plexiglas before seizing Tiffany by the throat with one hand, and held her down. With the o
ther hand he pressed on her mound, through her panties.
He held her like that and Tiffany was alarmed at the rising tides of tingling sensation that welled up in her. She could smell her own juices. She knew that the biker must have been able to smell them, too.
She remembered from a lecture that women lubricate when they are about to be raped. The beady-eyed endocrinologist had relished his topic. “It’s evolutionary, like most of our body’s behavior. It’s believed to have been a means of self-preservation.”
She remembered his little snaky tongue flicking across his lips as he said, “It very likely goes all the way back to times when there was little or no verbal communication, before there was any discussion about consent.” Tiffany had wondered if that was the whole story.
A pair of boots clomped back the way the van had come in, twenty-eight paces. Then there was the sound of a heavy door sliding and a clang when it shut. Twenty-eight paces back. Tiffany felt better knowing that some skill had shown itself to her. She was a drummer. She could count.
Without even thinking about it, she listened to the footsteps go and come back, and then replayed the rhythm in her head. As it played, she counted the steps. She had a sense of the building being large and cavernous. It was some old warehouse or something.
The side door of the van opened from the outside, revealing the blond biker, reflective shades on and the bandana still over his mouth and nose. The black-haired biker let go of his grip on her throat. His hand dragged away from her panties, but much more slowly. Then he held a finger in front of her nose. The finger pointed to say, Don’t move, but she was more aware of it carrying her own scent.
The biker that was molesting her climbed out. The blond climbed in and slid onto the bench opposite. She couldn’t see his eyes behind the shades, but she saw his jaw muscles work under the bandana.
He reached across for her purse. She shoved her shoulder towards him to indicate that he could take it. Really, what choice did she have? When he took the purse and reached in for her iPhone, he showed her what he was doing. Then he snapped the purse shut and slipped it back under her arm.
Her iPhone went into his pocket, then he held up a narrow black cloth. As he stretched it out, Tiffany saw that it was to blindfold her. A swell of yawning dread opened inside her as she fought off the implications that a blindfold could have.
They just don’t want you to see anything that could be evidence, she told herself. Evidence you could give after they release you. Her eyes narrowed as she let him wrap the cloth tight around her head and tied it at the back.
Tiffany couldn’t keep from shivering as he laid a big hand on her shoulder. Thetrembling wouldn’t stop as he guided her first to sit up, then out of the van.
Her steps were clumsy as she still shook. With a surge of anger, she realized that she was embarrassed by her body’s show of fear. Who wouldn’t be afraid? She reasoned, and why shouldn’t the fuckers see what they’ve done? Her mind hardened. Because I won’t. Let. Them. Win.
The floor was hard and gritty, with a scrape of crunching dust like old concrete under her boots. He held her upper arm and led her along, up to a set of three metal steps. His grip wasn’t cruel or harsh. She had the sense that he was being considerate.
At the top of the steps, she was walked through a doorway. It seemed like a trailer or a camper. Something that was on springs, for sure, because she felt it move and give as she stepped in, and again as the biker walked in behind her. He took her across to a low, soft couch of some kind.
Slumped back into the couch, with her bound arms cranked up behind her, Tiffany was stuck like a turtle on its back.
The biker walked back across the springy floor and out the door. She heard it close. Now she felt panic. They couldn’t leave her like this, mouth covered, arms cramped, useless and hurting. The blond biker was walking across the concrete outside. She counted his steps. Thirteen. No more than halfway to the door.
She heard the murmur of a voice, distant and echoing. It spoke in four or five short bursts. She fixed her memory of the sound. Played it back to check she had it all and kept it for later. She might even be able to decipher some of what he said through the echo.
It was quiet again before the footsteps started back. He got to the metal steps outside and mounted them. Then he opened the door, crossed the floor, andpulled up the blindfold. There was Daddy, in front of her face, on the iPhone screen.
His face wracked in pain as he saw her. Then the biker yanked the blindfold back over her eyes. Tiffany heard and felt the couch shake as he left again, then the shudder as he shut the door behind him.
She’d had a glimpse now, and it was definitely a trailer. Not a very new one, and one with brown cardboard taped over the window. There was a small kitchen area to her right and a narrow corridor off to her left.
What else could she remember? Not much. She had an uneasy feeling that there was something, something important and right in front of her that she was somehow not seeing.
Now she listened for the sound outside. The biker had walked back across the concrete, seventeen steps this time, not thirteen. So he probably wasn’t going to a place or a thing. It wasn’t a desk, a table or a window, he was just getting distance.
It could have meant that he was getting distance from her. She hoped that was it. She wanted it to be because he didn’t want her to hear his voice, so that she wouldn’t have information to give when they let her go. It meant that they planned to let her go.
Tiffany knew she couldn’t rely on that. She also knew that, whatever it took, she had to stay positive. They could just be a really smart and professional group of kidnappers. Keeping her from any knowledge of them was the smart way to do it. It was still a real reason for hope.
There’s no use in second-guessing, she told herself. You need to be calm, and find certainties. She was confused and afraid, and she didn’t know anything about kidnapping. She knew just about as much as anyone who watches movies or sees TV shows. It was all just speculation. This is a living nightmare, she thought. You HAVE to stay strong.
Daddy on the phone, though. That must have been the first ransom call. They used her phone. Smart, but they used it here. The phone records would have the location for the call.
Either they’re not so smart, or she would be moved again, almost immediately. Something troubled her, something about her phone, but she couldn’t bring it through the confusion to the front of her mind.
Chapter 3
She remembered the footsteps across the concrete of the biker who closed the door to the warehouse or whatever it was. She guessed he was the driver, and the footsteps of the blond biker just now.
Drummer Tiffany was the steady heartbeat, the pulse of her band, The Noise of Art. The school magazine editor called her a clock-steady beat machine. She had the rhythms of two of the bikers’ walks and she would be able to replicate them perfectly.
Since Tiffany was a very small girl, lying in the dark in her room, she’d been able to identify every person she knew or met just by hearing them walk.
The way Daddy rolled up the stairs, Momma’s little tap-dance around the kitchen. Uncles, aunts, cousins and all of Daddy’s old buddies from the Marines—she could identify their feet on the gravel outside, usually inside three steps.
Everybody except for Daddy thought that it was spooky, or that she was using some kind of a trick. Even Daddy was mystified, and he wasn’t a man to enjoy a mystery.
So, by the age of five, Tiffany learned that people--adults mainly--could react badly if you told them something they couldn’t understand or they had trouble believing. Even Daddy. Particularly if it was something you could do that they couldn’t.
So she no longer mentioned this side-effect of her whisker-keen musical ear, and she allowed everyone to forget.
~~~~
The lead biker, or the one she assumed was the leader, took her back out of the trailer. As Tiffany walked unsteadily down the steps, she moved her head around to
try and see out the bottom of the blindfold, to keep her balance as much as anything.
She saw gray metal steps, dirty gray concrete with red dust and not much else, followed by a flash of turquoise. Her Mini was here.
The biker’s strong arms shoved her back into the van and back to the bench. They left the blindfold on, but the same biker was in the back. Tiff caught his scent.
Might as well give them names. I have to have some way to think about them. ‘Biker 1, Biker 2? That’s not much use. Better to have something, some little characterization. Tiff thought. If I can name you, fuckers, then I start to own you.
The first one seemed to be the leader, and he had reminded her of a biker in a TV show. She’d name him--what was that guy called? Jax. She’d call him ‘Jax.’
She instinctively thought of calling the guy riding in back with her ‘Ax’. She had almost nothing to go on for the driver, but he was driving, so, ‘Max,’ like Mad Max. Jax, Ax and Max. The idea made her chuckle. Maybe there was a twang of hysteria.
Two Hitmen: A Double Bad Boy Mafia Romance (Lawless Book 1) Page 40