“That isn’t true; some of those women were really nice.”
Alice snorted into her ice cream. “They had more notches on their bedposts than you did. You didn’t do nice.” Once again she used air quotes around the word do.
Nic winced. It was true.
“Well, that was then, this is now. Now I’m not much interested in anything.”
“Oh, you’re celibate?” She arched an eyebrow.
“What, only women are allowed to try that on for size? You’ve told me yourself that you haven’t been into relationships or anything else since Don left. Why is it so hard to believe that I’ve hit a dry spell?”
Alice sighed and put her hand on his forearm.
“Do you think you’re finally over her? It’s been six years. Can you move on?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” He stood up and put his bowl in the sink. “Are you done with yours?”
Alice nodded and he put hers in the sink too. Then he reached for the blackberry cobbler pan.
“What are you doing with that?” she asked quickly.
“I figured the trash.”
“Well, stop figuring. That was pretty tasty with ice cream. I’m going to put some Saran Wrap on it and put it in the fridge. So why the need to bake?”
“I owe one of the guys Mom’s cobbler at the next cookout, thought I’d try baking my own.”
Alice laughed, then opened the fridge. She pulled out the remaining baskets of berries that he had left. “I tell you what. I’ve got you covered. That way you don’t have to ask Aunt Scarlett.”
He perked up. “That’d be great! I’ll owe you.”
“Like hell you will,” she said as she batted him on the back of the head.
His laugh bellowed across the kitchen.
3
“Where are we?” Roxanne asked for the fourth time. Camilla looked out the window into the dark jungle. All she could see was black, with occasional shots of green when the lights from one of the Jeeps that was following them shone on the foliage.
How often was she going to ask the same damn question?
Camilla ignored the girl’s question this time.
“Camilla, answer me. Where do you think we are?” She sounded like she was talking to a servant.
“Roxanne, you need to stop talking. And for the last time, we’re in the Mexican jungle,” she said in the lowest whisper she could.
“When are they going to let us go?”
Camilla had already tried not answering her questions, but that just caused Roxanne to ask more questions, faster and louder. The girl could not stop talking. El Jefe was going to single her out again, for sure.
Camilla turned in her seat and gripped Roxanne’s thigh, hard. “Do. Not. Speak.”
Suddenly, Roxanne’s eyes filled with tears.
Camilla loosened her grip and leaned into the girl so she was talking directly into her ear. “These men are savages. We don’t know what they’re capable of. Roxanne, you’re young and pretty, I don’t want them noticing you. You need to keep quiet.”
Understanding dawned at long last in Roxanne’s eyes. She whispered back. “I talk when I’m scared. I always have.”
Camilla gave her best student-teacher encouraging smile. “Now’s a good time to learn a new habit. I know you can, Roxanne. I believe in you.”
“You do?” Her blue eyes sparked with hope.
“I do,” Camilla said fervently.
Please God, let her learn.
They’d been on the road for over eight hours. The one bathroom break they’d had, had been awful. Peeing behind a tree in the jungle wasn’t her idea of fun, but having to do it when leering males were mere feet away was almost the worst experience of her life. When she and Lisa had finished, they’d done what they could to shield some of the other young women from prying eyes. Their captors had laughed at their attempts.
Camilla knew deep in her heart this was going to get worse before it was going to get better, so her job was to help keep her ‘kids’ safe. Roxanne was one of the weakest links. She’d been taking headcount around the bus to determine who else was likely to be singled out. There was Travis Driver—he’d already had one run-in with El Jefe, and Camilla knew that he was going to be looking for a chance to prove himself against their captors. If he fought again, he’d probably be killed. There had to be a way for her to convince him to stand down.
Then there was Phyllis Agar—she was a hard one to pin down. Like Roxanne, she came from a background of extreme wealth, but she never flaunted it. Somehow she was a girl who was always on the outside looking in, and she seemed to be ostracized by everyone, which meant that no one would be willing to help her if it came down to it.
Camilla was also worried about Lisa Garcia. She was from Tempe, Arizona, and they had developed a friendship on the first day. She’d already heard the leader talk about the fact that she wasn’t worth any money to them, so she was disposable. Camilla had to make it seem like Lisa was an integral part of this groups’ cooperation. Perhaps she could—
Her head slammed forward, only to be jerked back by the strap of her seatbelt. Her head smashed into the seat rest behind her like it been shot out of a gun. Her mouth opened to scream in pain, but no sound came out. She jerked forward again like a ragdoll. Back and forth she went until her head hung down and she wondered if her neck was broken.
Her ears were ringing; she couldn’t hear anything but the sound of the loud clang.
Wait. That wasn’t ringing. That was crying and screams.
When she finally heaved a sigh of relief because her body was still, she felt her body begin to fall sideways toward Roxanne. She could barely turn her head, it hurt so much, but she managed it. Roxanne’s eyes were closed.
Camilla looked past the unconscious girl and saw luggage falling onto Liz and Brian who were in the seat across from her. The window that Liz was sitting next to was broken, and a tree branch was sticking through it. The branch was covered in blood. Liz’s blood!
The bus is on its side!
She could barely move her head from the pain but she prayed as hard as she could that she would see El Jefe sprawled dead across the aisle since he hadn’t been buckled in. Inch by slow inch, she turned her neck so that she could see near the front of the bus, but there was no sign of El Jefe. Finally, she spotted Lisa. She was hanging out of the seat behind the driver’s seat. Apparently, she only had a lap seat belt. Dammit!
“Roxanne, can you hear me?” she prodded the girl beside her.
She didn’t respond.
Camilla lifted her hand and touched her fingers to Roxanne’s neck. A swoosh of air left her lungs as she sighed in relief. Roxanne’s pulse was fine. She heard others in the bus beginning to talk to one another, asking their status. She looked over and saw Brian trying to get Liz to respond. He wasn’t having any success.
“Doctor Ross!” a voice called out to her from the back of the bus. Camilla recognized who was talking. It was Michael Lyton, one of the football players from William and Mary College. He was only a sophomore, but he had a good head on his shoulders.
“What’s going on, Michael?”
“Can you come here? It’s important.”
“I’m basically hanging from the ceiling, Michael. I can’t get there.” She turned her body so that she could see over the tall bus seat and look toward the back of the bus as best she could.
Oh, God.
“Michael, don’t. The other men will be boarding the bus any minute,” she begged the young man. He had El Jefe’s rifle. The kidnapper was sprawled unconscious across two seats, and Michael had the rifle pointed at El Jefe’s temple.
“I’m not going to kill him, I’m going to use him as a way to get us out of here. They won’t want their leader dead. Will they?”
It was the way he asked the question, ‘will they’ that got her attention. It scared her to think that she was somehow the leader in this fiasco, and if she didn’t do something, Michael was going to end up dead beca
use he tried to outgun the kidnappers.
“Michael, drop the gun, it’s a losing proposition.”
“No, it’s not. You’re doing good, man,” Travis yelled out.
“Be quiet, Travis. You’re not helping,” she gritted out loudly. “Michael, stop this before he wakes up.”
“If he wakes up, I’ll kill him. He’s the leader: without him, maybe the others will let us go.”
“He’s the one keeping the others in line. It would be worse without him,” she argued.
“Don’t listen to her. We need him as a hostage,” Travis interjected.
To hell with El Jefe, I’m going to kill Travis!
Camilla could hear clamoring outside the bus. They were being boarded. She turned her head toward the bus door and saw Travis letting himself out of his seat and dropping down so that he could join Michael.
“Gentlemen, you’re going to get killed. Stop this now.” She used her best student-teacher voice.
“Shut up, Doctor Ross, this isn’t the classroom,” Travis bellowed.
Before he could reach Michael, El Jefe’s hand moved and grabbed the barrel of the rifle. He pulled it forward as he moved his head, forcing it to go past him. A shot fired into the seat that the kidnapper had been lying across. Blood splattered against the far window as Larry Collins was shot in the head.
Camilla closed her eyes against the horrifying scene. How would Michael ever live with himself?
“Jesus. God no.” Travis sounded like he was in intense pain.
Camilla opened her eyes and looked at Travis, who was staring at Michael. She turned to look at Michael and gasped in horror for a second time. El Jefe’s knife stuck out of Michael’s neck. For just an instant Michael’s eyes sought hers out. They connected, he saw her, he was pleading for something. Anything.
Oh God, the terror and pain on that boy’s face as he looks at me. I can’t look away, I need to be strong for him.
Camilla's heart wrenched as she watched the life fade out of his eyes before he slumped to the floor.
El Jefe, who now had the rifle, shot a long burst of bullets into the bus’s side that was now acting as the ceiling. “Who else wants to try something stupid?” he roared as he staggered toward the front of the bus. Travis, who was still standing in what was now the middle aisle, held up his hands.
“I don’t want any trouble. I promise.”
El Jefe jabbed the tip of the rifle into Travis’ stomach, causing the young man to gasp with pain. “Are you rich? How much will your parents pay for you?”
“A lot,” Travis promised.
“Enough for you and the two kids who died? Including the one you forced me to kill? Because his death is on you.” Travis looked like he was going to throw up. “Your parents’ ransom will be three times as much as all the others. If they don’t pay, my men will tie you to a tree and leave you for the jaguars. You understand me?”
Travis didn’t say anything.
This time El Jefe heaved the rifle backward, and pounded the gun into Travis’ stomach, slamming the kid so hard that he skidded along the side of the bus, through the broken glass. No screams this time, only whimpers came from the other students.
El Jefe picked him up by his shirt collar and flung him sideways, out of his path, so that he could make his way to the front of the bus. That was the first time Camilla noticed that the door to the bus was open and some of the other kidnappers were crawling inside.
“How many dead?” one of the men asked.
“I don’t know, do a count,” the leader said as he stepped by Lisa and looked down at the semi-conscious driver. He grabbed his hair and jerked his head around so that his face was looking up at El Jefe. “You fucked up.”
Camilla shut her eyes. She heard screams and knew that the man was dead.
Nic had had a hard time sleeping the night before—too many dreams of pain and loss. Nothing new. Missions where people were wounded or died got confused with the last time he saw her face. Her tears and that last gut-wrenching goodbye. It was nights like that when he just got up and trained until his muscles were on fire. Until he couldn’t think about anything else.
Now here he was in a briefing, paying for it, his concentration shot.
He sucked down another large gulp of coffee laden with sugar, praying it would wake him up. Two nights in a row of non-existent sleep were taking their toll.
“—likely to saddle up. We just need a little more intel as to which way they went after the initial take-down. Unfortunately with the tree canopy being so thick, it’s a crapshoot. We’re depending on some of the locals on the ground. We’re going to drop in.”
Nic looked up from his coffee to see Asher and Cullen looking up in excitement. They were the ones who scored highest and jump school and always had shit-eating grins on their faces whenever they had to drop into a mission. Then Nic looked at Zed Zaragoza. He looked as calm as normal—that man always looked like he had taken a Xanax—but Nic couldn’t help but be worried for him. He had recently come off of a catastrophic injury. Would he be up for the jump?
As if he could feel Nic’s eyes on him, Zed turned around and lifted an eyebrow his way. Nic raised his coffee cup an inch in reply at being caught. Zed gave him a half-smile. That was all it took, and Nic felt reassured that Zed would be fine.
How can he read me so well? That man is scary with a capital ‘S’.
“Have the parents at William and Mary College been notified? What about the others?” Kane asked Max.
“Negative. The only reason anyone has been alerted is that the tour guide got a message out before the bus was boarded. She kept a cool head and gave coordinates and said there were three Jeeps.”
Nic figured that had to mean at least twelve men.
“As a local, she probably has knowledge about how this goes down,” Leo said.
“Her name might be Lisa Garcia, but she’s from Tempe, Arizona. She’s as apple pie as the rest of us,” Max explained. “The only local on the bus is the bus driver; everyone else by our estimation is American. The last time a kidnapping of Americans like this has gone down was a year and a half ago, and it wasn’t nearly this size.”
“I thought they were kidnapping businessmen.” Asher looked confused.
“I hate to say it, but those are getting to be a little too commonplace, and are onesy-twosies, that’s why more and more companies have opted for kidnap, war, terrorism, and ransom insurance. A lot of the kidnappings that happen don’t even make it to the military. This isn’t the same thing. This is definitely ours to deal with.”
“So, when did Lisa call out the coordinates?” Nic asked.
“Eighteen hours ago. They’re going to try to get as far away from the capture zone as possible, as quick as possible.”
“Where were they?”
Max hit the lights in the briefing room and Kane’s projector flashed a picture of the Yucatan peninsula up on the screen at the front of the room. “This is almost smack dab between Chetumal and Calakmul. According to the tour company they were supposed to be visiting the Mayan ruins in Calakmul yesterday.”
“They must be pretty studious college students if they were going to visit a bunch of ruins,” Ezio commented.
“They were coming from three nights in Cancun. My guess is they were pretty hungover college students,” Kane responded.
“Since the F.B.I is saying no ransom demands have been made, we’ve got to assume that they haven’t reached their stopping point, because you sure as hell know they didn’t stay put,” Max interjected.
“That doesn’t make sense,” Cullen objected. “They probably have satellite phones; why not start making calls while they’re on the road?”
“They need to figure out who they have, and who they need to call,” Kane said emphatically.
Makes sense, Nic thought. But he couldn’t stop thinking of William and Mary College. That’s where Camilla had gone to school all those years ago when they had parted ways. Imagining young students like
her on the bus, so innocent and scared, made him furious. Furious and scared. They had to get them the hell out of there.
“We still don’t have the green light on this mission, but my gut tells me we will,” Max was saying. “I want all of you on to stay near base, and be ready at the drop of a hat.”
They all nodded.
4
Dawn in the jungle came as a blessed relief. She could finally see all of the others from the tour bus and make an assessment of their injuries. Why hadn’t that bastard let them stay in the bus instead of sleeping on the bug-infested jungle floor? She was positive that ants were literally in her pants, okay capris, but same difference. She’d squirm but that would only arouse the men’s attention, which was the last thing she wanted.
Camilla knew that Michael, Larry, and Liz were dead, but as she did a headcount, there were only eleven students instead of fifteen. Who else was missing? She kept looking around the makeshift campsite, but couldn’t see anyone else.
To hell with it, I’m getting up. So what if I wiggle?
Camilla eased away from Roxanne, working hard not to disturb her. Phyllis was on her other side. Her heart ached for the two girls. Neither of them was equipped to cope with this; hell, she wasn’t equipped to cope with this, but she didn’t have a choice but to pull up her ant-filled panties and deal.
Everyone was bunched together in a big dogpile, for comfort and safety. Mostly the girls and guys had separated with a few exceptions. Besides Phyllis and Roxanne, Pam was wedged beside Lisa.
Camilla had spotted Paul and Jan snuggled together. She’d noted that Travis was sleeping the farthest away from the group. The couple of times she’d managed to fall asleep she’d replayed Michael and Larry’s deaths and woke up muffling a scream. Camilla vacillated between ready to lunge at Travis or hug him because she knew how badly he must be hurting.
Her Faithful Protector: A Navy SEAL Romance (Night Storm Book 6) Page 3