Part 18 (1/2)
But Jessica answered, ”I'm from Mission Viejo,” through lips that barely moved.
Something clicked in her brain and fear crystallized in Kara's stomach, spreading and spreading until even her scalp felt cold. ”You're from the V-Club.”
EmilyJ from Fresno. JezzC from Mission Viejo.
Both girls had been members of the online community for months, posted regularly, had their pictures all over it. Kara remembered that Emily was fourteen and Jessica fifteen. Kara thought of the explicit posts, the vicious taunts she'd posted under her Kstar90 alias, and felt guilt pile onto the anxiety that already had her stomach in knots. Though it was only a matter of a few years, she felt ages older than these two girls. And ashamed at the way she'd made fun of them, goaded them, laughing because no one realized who she really was.
”Oh my G.o.d, you're that Kara,” Emily said.
”You think that's part of the reason they took us? Because they want girls who promise to stay virgins?”
”It has to be,” Kara said. This was so messed up. How many times had they chatted about meeting face-to-face?
And now here they were.
”I know we're supposed to be careful about what we say,” Emily said, her voice cracking. ”But who ever thought it would be dangerous to talk about being a virgin?”
She remembered how Toni had cautioned her to be careful about what she did on her FacePlace page. ”Don't ever give any details about yourself. Never friend anyone unless you're positive who they are.” Kara had rolled her eyes, thinking how she liked Toni and all, but she was way too paranoid from all the snooping around she did.
”We're a bunch of virgins, Toni. No one cares what we have to say.”
Of course, Toni had no idea about her other online persona. She had no idea Kara was posting pictures of herself and talking graphically about s.e.x. No one did, except for Toby. Kara loved the rush she got every time she logged on as Kstar90, knowing that no one had any idea who she really was. As far as anyone knew, Kara was the model kid everyone wanted her to be.
She'd never expected that keeping up her image as Daddy's perfect little girl would land her and two other online friends handcuffed to beds in a shack in the middle of nowhere.
She felt Emily shaking next to her, heard the sobs she tried to hold back in her throat. That bad, dark feeling she had when she realized the men weren't hiding their faces came back. ”They're going to sell us,” Kara said finally. Her friends deserved to know the truth, no matter how horrifying. Emily stiffened next to her. ”I heard one of the men-the head guy, I think-tell my dad about it.”
Her throat got tight, and panic once again seized her lungs. At the time, she'd been able to keep a grip on her fear, convincing herself it was all bulls.h.i.+t, a ploy to get her dad to cooperate and give up whatever prototype the man was talking about.
Now she was afraid they had no intention of letting her go, no matter what her dad promised.
Toni hadn't heard from Ethan since he left her apartment the previous day. She'd pulled her phone out to call him a dozen times, but each time she'd stopped short of dialing his number. She had nothing new to tell him. Though she still held the faint hope that Kara was just partying at the beach with her friends, she wasn't surprised not to hear from her. She a.s.sumed Ethan would have called her if he'd heard anything new.
In the meantime, she was still going through gigabytes of files and archived messages on Jerry's computer and had recovered his deleted files. But she hadn't found anything of particular interest, and it didn't help that she wasn't sure exactly what she should be looking for.
And a lead was the only excuse to call Ethan. No matter how much she wanted to call him, see if he was okay, see if his brother and father were okay, he'd made it clear yesterday he didn't want her sympathy. Didn't want her probing into his personal life.
For the billionth time, she wondered why the h.e.l.l she cared. It wasn't as if she was looking for a relations.h.i.+p with Ethan or any other man. She was blowing town as soon as possible, getting in her car and taking off for Seattle ASAP.
That was her plan, and she was sticking to it.
She wondered if Ethan spent last night alone.
She wondered what was up with the family baggage he alluded to.
The urge to do an extra-thorough background check was nearly killing her. It would be so easy. Ten minutes, fifteen tops, and she'd know everything about Ethan Taggart from his birth weight to where he'd had dinner last night.
When the urge reached the overwhelming state, she laced up her running shoes and drove to the foothills near the Stanford campus for a run. She loved running here, through the sunbaked hills dotted with twisted old oaks, up to the ma.s.sive satellite dish with its nose tipped to the sky. And right now, focusing on not pa.s.sing out from the heat as she pounded up a steep hill that led to the dish was enough to keep her brain occupied for half an hour or so.
On the way home, she made a quick stop at the grocery store to pick up milk, coffee, and cereal. Stalling, since she knew the second she got home she was going to Google Ethan at the very least.
She pulled into her parking s.p.a.ce, the afternoon sun hitting her like a blast furnace as she got out of the air-conditioned car. She went around to the back and saw that everything had scattered across her trunk in the course of the short drive home. She bent over to gather up her groceries and heard an engine roar to life somewhere in the parking lot.
Someone needed to get their a.s.s to the Midas m.u.f.fler shop, stat.
She shoved everything back into the bag and grabbed the plastic handle, cursing as the handle ripped, sending a carton of milk tumbling back into the corner of her trunk. She reached into the trunk, fumbling around until her hand finally closed around the cool cardboard. As she pulled it out, the rumbling engine grew louder and louder until the sound was almost deafening.
She looked up to see a beat-up sedan barreling right at her. The milk carton slid from her hand. The car was going way too fast to stop before it hit her. She flung herself to the side, landing between her car and the one in the next parking stall a split second before the sedan slammed into the back of her Honda.
She barely had time to catch her breath as the car backed up and came charging at her again. She scrambled toward her driver's side as the car hit hers at an angle, smas.h.i.+ng her Honda into the car next to it, leaving only a small s.p.a.ce for her near the front b.u.mpers. Panic clawed at her stomach as she heard the engine revving again. Her car lurched at the impact. She was pinned down, trapped between her car, her neighbor's, and the concrete wall at the front of the carport.
She needed to move before she was crushed. The sedan's engine rumbled again as her a.s.sailant backed up, and she dived over her neighbor's car, skittering over the hood, hitting the ground running as she heard the car get up to speed. The scream of metal and steel colliding rang across the asphalt. A car door slammed, a male voice cursed, and she kept running for the stairs. Tires squealed and the loud rumble of the engine faded as the crazy hit-and-run driver fled.
In her dazed state, she only wanted to get to the relative safety of her apartment. Her hand shook as she fumbled with the key, but she finally managed to get the door open.
She knew something was wrong the second she walked through the door, but she couldn't put her finger on exactly what. As she squinted into the dimness of her apartment, her breath caught as she saw her desk. It was clean.
Every piece of computer equipment, every sc.r.a.p of paper, was gone.
In a flash, she realized the hit-and-run downstairs had been no accident. She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and dialed Ethan's number without thinking.
”This is Ethan.”
The mere sound of his voice was enough to comfort her. Yet when she opened her mouth, she found her lips and tongue were so dry she could barely speak.
”h.e.l.lo? Who's there?” he snapped.
She licked her lips and tried again. ”Ethan? It's Toni.” Her voice quavered as her entire body began to shake.
”Are you okay? Tell me what's wrong.”
”I think someone just tried to kill me.”
CHAPTER 13.
E THAN BROKE NEARLY every traffic law on the books in his hurry to get to Toni. He'd been in bad s.h.i.+t before, times he was sure he was toast, but he had never felt the kind of panic he was experiencing now. All his energy was focused on getting to her, making sure she was safe, and hiding her away somewhere so she couldn't be hurt again.
Once she'd described what had happened, and the fact that her computers and files were missing, he knew the hit-and-run wasn't random. Toni was getting too close to finding out something Jerry wanted to keep hidden.
Ethan pulled into the parking lot of her apartment complex. Two squad cars were already on the scene. A paunchy guy was talking to a policeman, gesticulating wildly as he described how the car came out of nowhere and slammed into him as he was backing out of his s.p.a.ce.
Ethan spotted Toni across the parking lot, talking to a police officer over by her car. Ethan's gut tightened when he saw the damage to her little green Honda. The back end was completely crushed. Given the extent of the damage, he knew the guy must have been going at least forty miles an hour when he slammed into the car. If she hadn't jumped out of the way, she would have been crushed.
He winced as he saw the raw sc.r.a.pe on her leg, left bare by her running shorts. Another raw mark decorated her shoulder. Ethan's gut clenched as he took in her wounds. It could have been so much worse, but even the small evidence that someone tried to harm her made protective rage simmer through his veins.
She was remarkably composed as she talked to the officer, but as he got closer he could see the lines of strain around her mouth and the faint trembling of her fingers as she pointed to the entrance of the parking lot.