Chapter 2

“The reports say the police picked you up wondering the streets last night with a purse containing a wad of money and a knife. Care to tell us about that?” May asked.

“I stole them.” The girl freely admitted. “But it’s not what you think.”

“You see the knife was for protection from all the perverts and weirdos ... you know ... those kinda’ people ... and the money was to help me get away from The Family. Besides I thought they owed it to me after all the things they made me do.”

May’s eyes widened. It wasn’t from the frank admission that seemed like a young girl eager to explain to her elders that she had done no wrong. It was the word “Family” that got her interest and gave her the first inkling that this whole thing may be much more than it looked. She glanced over at her partner to see if he had caught the significance and he nodded at her. Normally once she had a person talking freely, May hated to interrupt because she believed it may inadvertently cause the person to clam up but in this case she decided to make an exception.

“The family?” She asked. “You ran away from your family because they were forcing you to do things you didn’t want to do?”

Although the detective knew Denise didn’t mean family as in birth family, she deliberately made it sound as if that was what she was thinking. She knew this would probably make Denise open up even more as she tried to show her and Kevin their mistake.

“No not that kind of family. It’s a different family and it’s not even a real family. It’s what the men tell us when they kidnap us and tell us we have to be prostitutes. They say you’re in The Family now and there’s no escape because once you’re part of The Family you’re always part of it.” As Denise hurriedly explained she looked at the pair of detectives as if they were dense.

“Okay, now I get it?” May nodded in understanding.

“So you managed to escape from this group of men and that’s how come the police found you wondering the streets.”

“Yes,” Denise announced in triumph. “You see. It’s just like I told you. I am not a hooker. I was just trying to escape from those men. So can I go now?” she looked at May and Kevin with a hopeful look on her face.

Unbelievable, Kevin mused. His curiosity growing by the minute, he surmised that she actually expected them to release her right away which wasn’t going to happen. The other thing that kept running through his mind was the fact that she seemed to want to be somewhere else in one hell of a hurry. Just where the hell would that be, he wondered. What was it just away from police custody which was normal, or did she have some other reason?

“We understand that you want to leave but you can’t. At least not quite yet so why don’t you tell us how you escaped?” Keven prodded. He was growing anxious to see where this was all going.

Denise looked at him. “After I tell you will you let me go?”

May tried to keep a smile off her face. There it was again. This too urgent desire to leave and she was persistent. It was all that came out of her mouth. Although most people didn’t like sticking around a police station any longer than required, especially when they’re being questioned, most of them realized they had to tell their story first. However, Denise didn’t seem to understand that. It was like she was filled with such a single mind of purpose that nothing else mattered.

“We’ll see,” May diplomatically answered. “Why don’t you just tell us how you managed to get away from those guys and then we’ll decide.”

She glanced at her partner but Kevin, acting as if he could his partner’s mind, was already preparing a tape recorder which he placed in the centre of the table.

“What’s that for?” Denise asked.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s just to make sure we don’t miss anything and that way we can understand your story better. It might even help you get out of her quicker.” May assured Denise.

As the detectives listened to Denise’s story their interest grew by leaps and bounds. What the hell are we getting into here, May wondered as Denise described how she and some other women who had been forced into prostitution were taken to a huge fancy house a few nights ago.

“They took about eight of us over to this big house. I think it must have been some kind of party for athletes or something because they were all celebrating some big win and everybody was drinking. When we got there we were immediately grabbed by these guys and then the party really started. Some of the girls were taken upstairs to the bedrooms and a couple of others were ... like ... performing for the men right in the living room. Like ... doing all kinds of kinky things in front of them, you know. I found myself sitting on a sofa with some older guy everybody kept calling The Coach. We just sat there for a while and he had a couple of drinks while he watched the girls, but I didn’t drink anything. Normally I do so I can get through doing whatever the men want but this time I just pretended to. Even though he seemed like a nice guy, even nicer than most I guess, I knew that sooner or later he was going to take me upstairs and I wanted to be ready to try and escape. I made sure he would take me into a bedroom by acting real nice to him and sure enough, he suddenly grabbed me by the hand and pulled me off the sofa. Then he led me upstairs into a bedroom. I continued to act really nice and once inside of it I suggested another drink. He said okay and I mixed it for him, but when he was too busy getting his pants off to notice, I took out a handful of pills I had taken from some of the girls and I dropped them into his drink. I stirred it up real good before handing it to him. Then I told him to hurry and drink up so we get into bed and he did.”

“Even though I didn’t know exactly what kind of pills I had scrounged from the girls, the result was even better than I hoped for. The man had a strange look on his face as he collapsed on the bed after taking only a few sips of it. It happened so fast at first I thought he was dead but I could see he was still breathing so I began the second part of my escape plan.”

“You see I’d seen other girls try to get away by sneaking out of the house during the party and then trying to run away. After that there were men always stationed outside so I decided to try something different. I was gonna try and hide inside the house during the party until nobody could find me and they would give up and go home. Then I would sneak away. That’s why I drugged that guy who took me up into a bedroom because I knew nobody would bother us for hours.”

“So I started looking around and after looking into a closet I decided that it might be a good place because I thought I was small enough to climb onto the second shelf and hide behind some boxes that were piled up in there. Only once I got up there okay, I must have pushed too hard against the wall because it suddenly gave way and I almost fell into the next room.”

“It made a whole bunch of noise and when I saw an old man at a desk I thought for sure he would catch me. So I thought that was it. My escape plan was over already, before it barely started so I sat there just waiting for him to turn around and see me. I was so scared because I saw what happened to the other girls who tried to escape. They would line up everybody and make them watch too, just to make sure nobody else would try it. But he didn’t move so at first I thought he might be sleeping. And because he looked really old I thought I could hide in that room without waking him up. So then I crawled right into that room and waited and waited and still the old guy still didn’t move so I thought it was okay to move around so I carefully put the wall back together as best as I could.”

“He still hadn’t moved so I began walking around the room, quietly so I wouldn’t wake him. Then when I got near the desk he was at, I knew he wasn’t sleeping.”

“He was dead. But I didn’t kill him,” Denise hastily explained. “He was like ... dead already ... when I got there ... you know...”

May and Kevin looked at each other, scarcely believing what they were hearing. It was so far-fetched it seemed almost impossible even for detectives who thought they had seen and heard everything already.

“Sure, we know you didn’t kill him.” May replied.

“Can you tell us what this old guy looked like?” Kevin asked.

He looked over at May. She nodded which was good because it meant they were on the same wave length. She was also wondering who this old codger could be.

“Well, he was really old. I mean old, old not like you guys. You guys are just old ... you know.”