As Maggie followed Wright into the jungle, she fought the feeling that she was ten again and walking on eggshells, afraid to say or do anything that would throw the man she was with into a rage. Wright seemed to take everything she said the wrong way. She suggested that she take a shower and get cleaned up for him, but he told her that was a stupid idea. They were, after all, about to get dirty and sweaty. She could shower when they got home.
They had walked for over two hours, and now he was ten steps ahead of her, almost tempting her to fall behind and get lost. She stumbled over a large root and fell. He didn’t turn around to help.
“Wright, please, I’m so sorry for whatever I’ve done, but I can’t keep up.”
Maggie felt tears coming on and tried to blink them back. She remembered how they made matters worse with her father. Memories of him slapping them away made her shudder, even though she’d worked through the abuse a long time ago and fully forgiven her father.
Why am I struggling so? She picked herself up and held her head, trying to regain her balance. Since drinking that delicious coffee, her head had spun and her equilibrium was off. It wasn’t like her to be so unsteady. Was it too much caffeine and chocolate?
Wright had disappeared, and Maggie realized she was alone and helpless. If he left her there, she would be lost. Worse yet, he carried the backpack with their water and food. She was totally dependent on him. Why didn’t he turn back to check on her? He’d been so accommodating. Is he doing this on purpose?
She reached for a branch to help herself over another gnarled root system.
“Ouch,” she yelled. A large thorn had stuck in her hand. She pulled it out and shook her fingers.
“Wright, please,” she called. “Don’t leave me alone!” Suddenly her mind was filled with images of slithering snakes and snarling leopards.
“Wright!” She could continue no longer. She stopped, covered her face with her hands and began to sob. Her world was collapsing around her.
“Oh, stop it!” Wright yelled, making her jump. He had circled back behind her. “Stop it.” He grabbed her shoulders and spun her around. “Don’t ruin this.” He shook her. “You trying to ruin this?” He shook her harder.
Maggie’s hands dropped to her side. She stared into Wright’s eyes and saw madness. She whimpered as his hand raised to slap her.
“UOOOF!”
Something bellowed behind Maggie, and Wright froze, dropping his hand. “Kumārī, look,” he said, slowly turning Maggie around.
A large male orangutan stood on his hind legs, ten feet from them. “UOOOF,” the animal bellowed and beat his chest.
CHAPTER 49
UNVEILED
Nick startled awake to see Robert standing at his bedside in the guest room of Wright’s home. He thought he’d slept through his alarm, then he remembered it was Saturday.
“Nickloss, I brought you some breakfast,” Robert said through his teeth. “You looked pretty tired last night. I thought you could use something to eat.”
“Oh, Robert! You’re the one we should all be waiting on,” Nick said and stretched.
“Old habits die hard, I guess,” Robert said. He put the tray of food and coffee on the table by the sliding glass door that overlooked the sea.
Robert looked anemic but spry for an eighty-year-old man recovering from a near-deadly attack. After the assault, Robert had come close to requiring a blood transfusion, but he’d declined it. Nick wished the old man’s stamina and resilience were contagious.
“I tried all night to reach Maggie,” Nick said as he got out of bed. He pulled a T-shirt over his head and tucked it into his scrub bottoms. “I was worried enough that I finally called Wright’s phone. He didn’t pick up either. Their phones are turned off, or they’re out of range.”
Robert nodded. “That is quite unusual.”
“What do you think we should do?” Nick asked, sitting at the table and admiring the meal.
Robert sat in the chair opposite Nick and took a frozen smoothie from the tray. He would be eating through straws until his jaw was healed and unwired. He took a long draw of the liquid and looked thoughtfully out the window at the calm sea.
He looked back at Nick. “Mr. Paul’s helicopter is not in the heliport here, and the staff at the research center told me he went upriver. I guess they could have gone to my home or…” He looked out the window again.
“Or, what?”
“Mr. Paul has a lodge in the rainforest that he recently completed.”
Nick huffed. “That figures.” Nick leaned back in his chair hard and crossed his arms. “Robert, I don’t understand what Maggie is doing.” Pain rose in his chest, and he put pressure on it with his fingertips.
Robert shrugged. “I as well, Nickloss. I saw how she looked at you. How she cared for you. Even Iban women are hard to understand sometimes, but this…I don’t know. Maggie is not the kind of person who would throw away her heart to have the trappings of this world.”
They sat in silence.
Nick picked at the fruit and granola but didn’t have an appetite.
He finally let out a loud sigh. “I may not be much different; I don’t know.”
Robert looked at him with surprise.
Nick raised his hands in surrender. “I really don’t know, Robert. I jumped at this job because I thought it would give me security, but it seems to be packed full of heartache. I thought as I prayed I got the green light from God, but maybe it was my own desire for a comfortable life. No more being on call, no more emergency-related stress. But now I’m thinking the money’s not worth it.” He puffed air out his lips. “Geez, look at me. I’m working for the guy who stole Maggie from me. Don’t I look like a total loser?”
Robert shrugged, then nodded.
Ouch! Having Robert agree didn’t help. Nick rubbed his chest. “And now I see these problems with the new medications.”
Robert’s eyes brightened. “Perhaps you are supposed to be here after all. Maybe you are not here for the money, but to be the voice of reason. I have been quite concerned about Welltrex. My people do not like it.”
“Why haven’t you said anything?”
Robert smiled with his eyes. “I am only the humble butler.”
Nick understood. He was supposed to be the medical director and had zero influence over anything. Certainly he had no say over Boxler.
Robert got up, opened the slider door, and let a fresh sea breeze drift in. “Nickloss, maybe we are looking too close.”
Nick didn’t understand and tilted his head.
“Sometimes we don’t understand or see God’s long-term plan. Do you remember the scripture in Matthew where Peter declares that Jesus is the Messiah? Jesus blesses Peter and tells him that he is the rock on which He will build the church.”
“Yes,” Nick said.
“In the very next verse, Jesus tells His disciples that He must suffer many things, and Peter tries to convince Him otherwise. Jesus rebukes him and says, ‘You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.’”
Nick immediately caught on. “I’ve been too short-sighted…looking too close, as you say. I haven’t been trying to see the whole picture. Maybe we need to be looking beyond what we see right now.”
Nick walked to the nightstand and opened his Bible to Matthew 16 to read through what Robert had just paraphrased. He nodded.
He traced the scripture with his finger until the end of the chapter and read Jesus’s words aloud: “‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?’”
Would I give up my soul for the millions that were promised?
* * *
Nick was sitting poolside after breakfast, reading through a stack of reports. Voices inside the house broke the morning tranquility
, and Nick looked up to see Robert escorting Christian, the muscular Iban servant, out the door.
“Nickloss, please…” Robert all but dragged the young man behind him.
Nick set the files on the table beside him and sat up on the side of the lounge chair.
“Nickloss, you must listen to what Christian has to say,” Robert said, pulling the servant close.
“Tell Dr. Hart what you just told me,” Robert’s face was beet red and his eyes angry as he forced Christian to square up to Nick. “Tell him.” He shook the young man’s arm as Nick stood.
Christian looked at the granite decking. “Dr. Hart, I am sorry. Mr. Paul threatened me if I told anyone, but I asked Robert what I should do.”
“Tell him!” Robert yelled through his teeth.
“Mr. Paul asked me to put the heart medicine in the lady’s coffee before I served it.”
Heat and alarm instantly shot up Nick’s back. “And did she know?”
The boy’s shoulders drooped, and he shook his head slowly.
Nick looked at Robert. “What the hell? Why would he do that?”
“I do not know, Nickloss.”
Nick back-kicked the lounge chair he had been sitting in and sent it tumbling over.
“There is one more thing,” Christian nervously said, looking at Nick and then at Robert.
“What?” Robert asked, still shaking the boy’s arm.
“There is a canister in her closet I am supposed to change every day.”
“A what?” Nick didn’t understand his accent.
“A canister, a spray,” the young man repeated.
Nick looked up at the balcony of the guest rooms and took off in a sprint up the stairs with Robert hauling Christian behind him.
Nick flung open the door to Maggie’s room and went straight to the closet. Maggie’s evening dresses hung from the rack, and she had neatly placed the fancy shoes that Wright bought her on the floor. Nick pushed the clothes from side to side but did not see a canister.
Robert and Christian came in behind him, and Robert pushed the boy forward to show them where it was. The young man took a step inside the closet and reached for a small door next to the door frame. He opened it, took out a small aerosol can and handed it to Robert.
Nick snatched it from Robert. He turned it over. Written on a piece of tape was THE RIGHT STUFF. “What the hell is this?” he demanded.
Robert looked at Christian, and they both shrugged.
Nick smelled the top of the can for hints, and rage rumbled in his gut. “What the hell…this smells like him!” he yelled. Nick gave the canister to Robert to confirm, then took Christian by the throat.
“Is there anything else?” The terrified young man’s eyes widened, but he shook his head.
“No, nothing, Dr. Hart. I promise.”
Nick let go of the boy. No use taking his anger out on him. Instead he tipped over chairs, threw off the bed coverings, and dumped drawers frantically searching for any other secrets Wright hid in Maggie’s room. In the top drawer was the fancy jeweled necklace that Wright had given Maggie. Nick threw it against the wall with such force that pieces came flying off it.
He felt like a madman, but every piece of furniture he toppled and every drawer he emptied was cathartic. He remembered raging against the waterfall, but now he could see…oh, could he see. That monster in sheep’s clothing was drugging Maggie.
Nick’s catharsis continued until his mind and body were exhausted, and he sat down on the now bare mattress. He tried slowing his breath until he could look at Robert and Christian without rage in his eyes.
“What are we going to do, Nickloss?” Robert asked.
Nick’s focus shot past the pair, and he ignored the question. He sprang up, went to the desk, righted it, and slid it across the floor to the middle of the room. Jumping on top of it, he stretched toward an air vent and pulled off the cover with his bare hands, taking plaster with it. The vent stopped at shoulder level and dangled by a black cord. Nick ripped the cable from the vent and inspected the end. The eye of a miniature camera peered back at him.
He threw the vent across the room and into a picture, shattering its glass.
“Maggie’s in trouble.”
CHAPTER 50
ATTACK
“Don’t look him in the eyes, Kumārī,” Wright whispered. In slow motion, he gripped her shoulders and turned her back toward him. He forced her to her knees and held the back of her neck, bending her face toward the ground. “If he attacks, ball up and protect your head and neck with your arms.”
The orangutan stood only five feet on his back legs, but he had a muscular body twice as wide as a man’s. He was a gorgeous specimen, one that Wright had never seen before, and that was bad. Even the wild beasts that knew him could be unpredictable, but this huge male must have moved in by force and taken over the congress of orangutans. Wright watched him out of the corner of his eye, tucked his chin to his chest and reached for his gun. The .357 Mag would stop the creature, but only if Wright hit it square in the chest or head. He withdrew the weapon slowly from the holster and raised it to his side.
The beast grunted again, grabbed branches from a nearby bush, and began ripping them apart.
Not a good sign.
As the orangutan shook the branches at Wright and Maggie, his massive facial disk and double chin wobbled like an angry fat man. He stretched out his arms to their full eight-foot span and grabbed small trees on each side of the trail to use as poles. He bounced up and down with agitation.
Wright covered the back of Maggie’s head with his hand.
This movement incited the creature, and his rage intensified, turning into a two-minute roar amplified by his mammoth face.
Maggie whimpered, wrapping her arms around her knees. Her cries roused the beast further. He roared again and charged.
Wright pushed Maggie to the ground, protecting her with his own body, and at the same time he fired the gun. The enormous beast smacked into them and sent them tumbling into the foliage.
They landed hard, and something snapped. Wright wasn’t sure if it was branches or bone, but darkness filled his vision.
* * *
SNAP. Maggie heard the sound. She thought it came from her body, but her world was spinning and she couldn’t be sure. She heard the bellowing orangutan. Is he going to attack again?
She squeezed her eyes shut as if that would make the terror disappear. The jungle around her swirled with the intruder’s rage. She thought Wright’s shot must have missed its mark but antagonized or possibly wounded the beast, making it more ferocious.
In Montana, grizzly bears attacked much the same way when surprised—charge, knock the danger to the ground, use their massive jaws and claws to subdue the challenge, then posture over their victory with huffing and roars. When hiking the wilderness she had always carried bear spray, and she wished she had a canister now. The best thing to do was play dead, act like she no longer posed a threat.
She could not feel Wright beside her. Had the monster dragged him off? Was he getting mauled? She risked danger and tried to assess the situation through squinted eyes. Little movements. Silent little movements.
She turned her head to the right and saw the beast standing on top of Wright’s limp body, jumping up and down on it as though trying to pound the carcass into the ground. The angry orangutan swung its enormous arms wildly, howling as it did. Wright had told her that an orangutan has seven times the strength of a man. The creature could easily snap Wright’s spine.
The big male’s agitation continued to grow, followed by roaring vocalization. Maggie opened her eyes wide when a large female wandered into view. A riotous exchange erupted between the two apes. The male jumped from Wright’s body into a tree, climbed effortlessly to the top, and swung two times to another tree.
The female sniffed at Wright’s lifeless body, picked up one of his arms and dropped it. She grabbed the pistol by the barrel and inspected its end. As soon as she touched it, sh
e screamed as if the barrel was burning hot, and she tossed it into the brush. She searched the area and spotted Maggie. Maggie averted her eyes, but not before she saw the orangutan headed her way.
Maggie tried rolling herself into a ball but found her right arm was tucked awkwardly behind her back and she couldn’t move. When she attempted to free herself, excruciating pain shot through her upper arm into her shoulder. The attack had broken her humerus.
She felt the hot breath and low vocalizations of the orangutan sniffing at her. A calloused hand wrapped around her neck, and she braced for the worst. But instead of attacking, the orangutan pulled Maggie to a sitting position and off her trapped arm. The pain was agonizing, and Maggie held her arm to stabilize it, bringing her forearm to her lap in one motion. She couldn’t help but whimper, which triggered more vocalizations from the ape that supported her. The animal put its white fuzzy mug to Maggie’s face and sniffed at her hair.
Maggie wrapped her left hand around where she knew the bone was fractured on the right, trying to stabilize it and stop the muscle spasms. The ape sniffed at Maggie’s arm and gently mouthed it with her big lips. She startled Maggie when she turned and scolded the bellowing male overhead. Spasms and pain shot through Maggie’s arm, and she panted through the agony.
The orangutan held Maggie’s face like a mother would comfort a hurt child. She kept her chin tucked and avoided eye contact, but the beast forced her chin up and her eyes forward. Maggie looked into the creature’s sad, dark eyes. The animal stared at her as if trying to read her mind and stroked Maggie’s cheek with concern.
Even in her pain, Maggie had to smile; the great ape was tending to her with the compassion of a nurse—communicating with her using touch and eye contact. Shaggy red hair framed its leathery face. The mother ape made a low, guttural grunt, followed by a kissing, sucking sound. It looked back over her shoulder as the rest of the ape family wandered into the area.
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