Before I head to the room, I stop. “Hey, there is something you can do.”
“Depends.”
“Can you send a black and white by my parents’ house? Just a drive-by. Make sure everything’s quiet.”
Tony nods. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Thanks, T. I owe you.”
Tucking the folder under my arm, I head toward the room. My boots echo down the hallway, each step heavier than the last.
Ty’s safe… for now.
But I’ve seen how fast things can go wrong.
And if the club finds him before I get back, it won’t be a warning. It’ll be blood.
I square my shoulders and push through the door.
The girl sitting at the table looks like she hasn’t slept in days. Her clothes are wrinkled, hair pulled back in a messy knot. There’s a bruise on her cheek, another on her wrist. She’s trembling, eyes darting toward the corners of the room like she’s waiting for someone to burst in. Can’t be more than sixteen years old.
I close the door gently behind me and take a seat across from her.
“Hey,” I say, keeping my voice low. “Are you okay?”
She doesn’t answer right away. Just stares at me, breathing shallow. Her cheeks are streaked with tears, and her hands tremble in her lap.
I slide the folder onto the table, but don’t open it. “You can start whenever you're ready.”
She looks up, eyes red and swollen. “He took us,” she says, voice barely above a whisper. “Me and my sister. Keller. Said we were just going for a ride.”
I nod slow and steady, taking out my pad and pen to make notes. “When was this?”
“Three nights ago. We were walking home from school. He pulled up, said he knew our mom. Said she told him to give us a lift.”
Her lip quivers. “I didn’t believe him. But my little sister did. She got in the car before I could stop her, and I didn’t want to leave her alone.”
“What happened next?”
Her eyes drop to the table. “He drove past our street. Locked the doors. Said we were going somewhere special.”
I don’t interrupt. Just let her talk.
“He took us to some kind of warehouse. It was cold and the windows were covered. He gave us food, but only enough to keep us quiet.”
She wipes her face with the sleeve of her jacket. “I escaped when he left the door unlocked. I ran, and didn’t look back.”
I lean in slightly. “Is your sister still there?”
She nods, tears falling again. “I think so. I don’t know. We were separated, but there were other girls there.”
I reach for the photo, but give her a second. She’s already unraveling. “Is this the man?”
“Yes. That’s him,” she says crying harder.
I nod, jot down the confirmation, and slide the photo back into the folder.
This is going to take more than a few hours. We’ll need a team, a location, backup, maybe even a warrant if we’re lucky.But right now, none of that matters more than getting those girls out.
