The girl who’d been filming spoke up, her voice shaking. “We’ve been trying to get away from him for an hour. He kept following us through stores. Kept taking pictures. The mall security—” she looked at me, “—we tried to find someone but couldn’t.”
I pulled out my radio immediately. “This is Frank. I need police at the north lot immediately. We have a potential attempted kidnapping. Suspect in custody. Send everything.”
Another biker, younger, with military tattoos covering his arms, spoke up. “I’ve got video on my phone. Shows him grabbing her. Shows him trying to force her toward that white van.” He pointed to a vehicle twenty feet away.
The crying girl finally found her voice. “He said he was a modeling scout. Said we could make thousands of dollars. But when we said no, he wouldn’t leave us alone. He grabbed my arm when I tried to walk away. That’s when they showed up.” She looked at the bikers with tears streaming down her face. “They saved us.”
I looked at these men differently now. Not a gang. Not troublemakers. Just fathers and grandfathers who’d seen something wrong and acted.
“We made sure not to hurt him,” the bearded one said. “Just restrained him. We know how this looks—bunch of bikers holding someone down. That’s why we need official police here.”
Police sirens wailed in the distance, getting closer.
The girl with the phone spoke again. “He had a gun. In his pocket. They took it away from him.” She pointed to another biker who was standing apart from the group, holding what looked like a .38 revolver with a handkerchief.
“I used to be a cop,” that biker said. “Twenty years, Detroit PD. I know how to preserve evidence. His prints are on it, not mine.”
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