J McKenna - Naughty girl

He spotted three cages along the far wall and went to them. Two were occupied. The women were naked, bound and gagged. “DeeDee?”

One of the women struggled in her bonds. Yes, thank God! It was her!

As he moved closer, he could tell that both women had plugs in their pussies and asses. Wires led from them to small machines outside the cells, where lights winked. It appeared to be some kind of programmed device for stimulating the women, he decided. Part of their training.

He quickly shut off both machines then looked around for keys to the cell. All the while, he kept his ears cocked for the sounds of the policemen upstairs.

The keys were on a hook on a nearby wall. He grabbed them and unlocked DeeDee’s cell. He stripped off her gag and hugged her.

“Oh, thank god, Master! I thought you were dead!”

He untied her arms and she moved quickly to remove the horrid devices from her orifices. Carl tried not to look.

“I’m not your master, DeeDee, but we’ll talk about that later. Do me a favor… Can you scream for me?”

DeeDee looked up, confused and terrified. “But he’ll hear us! He’ll kill you!”

“No, he won’t. There’s a couple of cops upstairs, looking for a kidnap victim right now. I called it in. If you scream, they’ll come running down here and Turk will be busted. That is, unless you want to stay…”

DeeDee opened her mouth and gave the most bloodcurdling scream Carl had ever heard. He had to clap his hand over his ears. In seconds, he heard Turk’s protesting voice, then thumps as the officers’ boots hit the stairs.

“This way, officers,” Carl called out, as he struggled to untie the soft ropes on DeeDee’s feet.

But the officers made one crucial mistake. In their haste to come down and see what the screaming was about, they both ran ahead of Turk. The slave trader pushed the back of the second policeman hard, causing him to stumble into the man in front. Carl looked up to see both officers tumbling down the stairs. Turk slammed the door above them.

Carl ran to them. One of the officers had hurt his knee, but said he could still walk. Carl helped them up then explained who he was and what he was doing there. He had to talk fast, for the officers appeared ready to shoot somebody.

The injured officer introduced himself as Baldwin; the other man was Hobbs. Baldwin tried his radio, but the thick walls of the dungeon prevented any signal from getting out. While Baldwin limped over to help Carl free the second woman, Hobbs ran back upstairs to see if he could unlock the door.

Once freed, the second woman told the officers she was Betty Flanders, a student at Arizona State University who had vanished two weeks ago. The petite brunette with a Winona Ryder haircut said she had been walking across the quad at night, when someone snuck up behind her and clasped a smelly handkerchief across her face. She had passed out and awakened here.

“God! It was awful! The things they made me do!”

She was acutely embarrassed to be nude in front of the officer, so he kindly doffed his leather jacket and draped it over her shoulders. She hugged it tightly. DeeDee just stood there naked, seemingly unconcerned.

While Betty was telling her tale, Hobbs reported that the door required a key. Baldwin shouted up for him to use his radio while standing by the door, hoping the signal could penetrate the steel and wood and carry to the car, where it would be transmitted to the station.

“Yeah!” he shouted down a few seconds later. “I got ‘em!”

“Great,” Baldwin said. “Of course, we’ll never live this down.” He shook his head ruefully.

It took ten minutes for other officers to arrive. Carl had to shout through the bookcase, telling them to find “Ivanhoe.” In seconds, they were free. The girls came up the stairs first, accompanied by the officers who hovered protectively around them. Hobbs had given his jacket to DeeDee, though she hadn’t asked for it. In fact, Carl thought DeeDee was surprisingly subdued for just having been rescued from a life of servitude. Had Turk brainwashed her already?

Turk, of course, was gone. So was Crystal. No doubt he had some kind of escape plan mapped out. When Carl told them about the safe and led them to the room, he wasn’t surprised to find it standing open, empty. He searched the desk for his wallet, but that was missing as well.

“Dammit! He got cash and whatever evidence was in there. Now we may never see him again,” he said, bitterly disappointed. “He’s probably heading for the airport.”

“We’ll put out an APB. If he’s stupid enough to try and fly out of here, we’ll get him,” Baldwin told him.

Turk didn’t seem stupid, but Carl didn’t say anything.

At the station, Carl gave his story four or five times to a pair of suspicious detectives while victim’s assistance people found clothes for DeeDee and Betty. Betty got on the phone to her parents, who were overjoyed at hearing their daughter was safe. The police asked DeeDee if she had anyone to call, a mother or father, but she just shook her head.

“I’ve got no one,” she said simply. Carl knew that wasn’t true—her mother was still alive, though estranged, but he decided not to press it.

“Hey,” he said, pulling her close. “You’ve got me.” She hugged him fiercely. It was the first real emotion he’d seen from her since their rescue. Carl’s back burned where she touched him, but he made no mention of it, so thrilled to have found her before she’d been sold and flown to god knows where.

The Santa Rosa Sheriff’s Department called and reported they had found Gloria and Sven at their ranch. They were both in custody. Gloria was demanding that Carl be arrested for assaulting Sven.

“Bitch,” he muttered.

One of the detectives, named Reilly, suggested Carl let them photograph the marks on his back to help prove the case. They took him into a separate room. An assistant D.A. came in with a Polaroid, reminding Carl of the Polaroid pictures that Gloria had of him in a compromising position. No doubt they would become part of the trial record. He shuddered. As he eased his shirt off, the A.D.A. and Reilly both gasped.

“Jesus H. Christ,” Reilly breathed while the A.D.A snapped a couple of pictures. “How did you survive that?”

Carl just shook his head, not knowing how to answer that. Paramedics were called in to treat his wounds. He refused to go to the hospital.

It took several hours for processing. Gloria and Sven were held on charges of kidnapping and torture. A warrant was put out for Turk’s arrest, and Crystal was wanted for questioning. They had failed to turn up at any of the local airports, as Carl had feared. He assumed Turk had chartered a plane or was driving to a hideout, biding his time until he could safely escape.

Either way, Carl doubted Turk would remain in the country for long. It bothered him that they had been so close to capturing him, but he had slipped through their fingers. However, his disappointment paled to the righteous anger displayed by the officers’ sergeant, who yelled at them in the middle of the bullpen over such a boneheaded move.

“What if he’d pulled a gun on you while your backs were turned, huh?!” he’d bellowed. “You’d both be dead and I’d have to explain to your widows what idiots you’d been! Do you think that’d be an easy job? Huh?”

The contrite officers just stood there with heads bowed. Carl suspected they would be walking traffic beats before the week was out.

That reminded him. “Officer—what day is it?” In all the confusion of the last few days, he’d completely forgotten his promise to his client.

“Why, Friday—almost Saturday,” he said, looking at the clock, which read 11:34.

Shit! “I’ve got to use the phone.” Carl hated to call his client so late, but he might be up still, fuming over the project that didn’t get done.