by Robin Huber
“Thank you.”
He holds her hand until she pulls it away.
I squint up at the sun to hide the amused look on my face. We haven’t been here two minutes and he’s already trying to charm the first woman he sees. When he’s through, I take my turn shaking her hand. “Hi, Mia. It’s nice to meet you.”
A tall, lanky young man steps beside her and extends his hand. “I’m Jason.”
“Kellan.” I shake his hand, which is wrapped firmly around mine. “You go to Stanford too, right?” I ask, glancing between the two of them.
He releases my hand and wraps his around Mia’s, confirming my assumption. They’re together. “Yes,” he says, “we both do.”
“I spent some time in Oceanside when I was a marine.”
“How long did you serve?” Dr. Hernandez asks.
“Ten years.”
“We’re lucky to have you here then,” he says, glancing at Jason. “All of you,” he adds, looking up at Grant.
Grant is Derek’s third hired gun. He’s the toughest guy I know. Maybe not the friendliest, but he’s definitely someone I trust. He saved my life in Afghanistan more than once.
“Grant McAlister,” Grant says gruffly, shaking the doctor’s hand.
Dr. Hernandez grips his large bicep and laughs. “Well, we’ll have nothing to fear with you around, will we?”
Grant rubs his hand over his short red beard, but he doesn’t laugh.
The chopper takes off, leaving behind an unexpected silence that’s only occasionally interrupted by the high-pitched calls of the birds in the surrounding trees and the waves crashing against the shore in the distance. I look at the turquoise ocean shimmering under the afternoon sun and inhale a lungful of the thick island air.
“Come on,” Dr. Hernandez says, patting my back. “We’ll show you to the house. We’re just about done getting everything set up.”
* * *
I lie on my surfboard, feeling the hot sun beat against my back as I paddle toward a swell that’s approaching.
“You’ve got to work harder than that,” Adam shouts across the water, racing me for the wave.
I grin and push my arms through the water faster, feeling the burn in my shoulders and back, until I reach the wave and pull myself up onto my feet. But as soon as I do, I see Mia on the beach waving her arms in the air. I let the wave carry me halfway in and then I drop down onto my stomach and start paddling to the shore. “Adam,” I shout, and he follows.
We’ve been on the island for a month now and haven’t encountered any unwanted visitors, but as we trudge through the surf, my muscles tense and my mind sharpens with readiness. Mia meets us at the water’s edge.
“What is it?” I ask her. “Is everyone okay?”
“We’re fine, it’s not us. It’s Derek. He needs to speak to you. He says it’s urgent.” She hands me the bulky satellite phone.
“Derek? What’s going on?”
“Kellan, I need your help. It’s Callie’s friend, Makayla. She’s in trouble.”
“Who?”
“Makayla Evans. She grew up with Callie. They’re like sisters.”
I’ve never even met Callie. I spent the better part of their relationship in Afghanistan.
“Makayla works at Syntec and...this is going to sound crazy, but I think she’s been kidnapped. And I think Marc Spencer had something to do with it.”
“Who’s Marc Spencer?”
“My boss. The CEO of Syntec.”
“Jesus. Did you call the police?”
“I don’t think they can help.”
“Derek, you need to call the police.”
“Marc’s not who I thought he was. I’m fairly certain he’s involved with the Salgado Cartel.”
“As in Manuel Salgado, the Mexican drug lord?”
“Yes. I’m not entirely sure to what extent, but I think he’s selling him illegal drugs. Makayla found an account with transactions tied to Santiago Quintero, who’s apparently one of Salgado’s captains. I think Marc found out. She sent Callie a text after she was taken. It was disjointed, but she mentioned Santiago and said she was headed to an airport.”
“Where do you think they took her?”
“Mexico, from what I’ve pieced together.”
“You think he’s trying to keep her quiet?”
“Yes. And you know what that means. I need you to find her, Kellan.”
“Derek–”
“I have the address to the bank in Mexico and all the information I could find on Salgado and Quintero. You said Grant was a helicopter pilot, right?”
“Yes, but–”
“I’ve arranged for a helicopter in Limón. You’ll have it for two days.”
“How the hell did you manage that?”
“Don’t worry about the details. I have access to Syntec’s resources. At least for now.”
“Derek, even if we go, how do you expect us to find her?”
“Find Santiago Quintero. If you can locate him, maybe you’ll find her.”
“And if we don’t? Or if she’s already...”
He’s quiet for several seconds. “Then at least I’ll know that we did everything we could.”
“What about the DEA?”
“The DEA will take days to get involved. These men are savages, Kellan. If they have her, she doesn’t have that long.”
“And if we do find her?”
“Take her back to the island. She’ll be safe there with you...until I can figure out what to do next.”
* * *
A man’s voice erupts at the opposite end of the dark bunker and adrenaline races through my tense muscles.
I hear crying, whimpering.
“Help.” The voice is small. Female.
I raise my gun and edge along the dark, dusty tunnel until I come to a dimly lit room where a dark-haired man is hovering over a girl. An American girl. She has blonde hair that’s tangled around her face and her skin is creamy white. It’s her.
I kick away a gun that’s lying on the ground by the mattress they’re on and shout at the man, who I know is Santiago Quintero by the tattoo on his hand and the red-eyed skull hanging from his neck—a gift given to all of Manuel Salgado’s captains. “Get up!” I shout, pointing my gun at him. “Levántate! Levántate!”
He stands up and slowly raises his hands, but when I take a step toward him, he pulls out a knife. “You can kill me, gringo, but you won’t get the girl. She was a gift to me.” He spits on the ground and lunges at me with the knife, before turning away and shoving it into her stomach.
My eyes flare and I shoot him. He falls to the ground and I shoot him again.
I push his body out of the way with my boot and see the half-naked girl tied to the mattress, bleeding from her stomach. I hover over her, but she doesn’t look up at me. She’s drugged. She barely moved when Quintero stabbed her. I cut the ties from her wrists. “You’re safe now,” I say, ignoring the blood running down my arm.
Her eyes roll back in her head and her body goes limp.
“Adam!” I call, placing my palms in the middle of her chest and beginning CPR.
Grant walks in and pauses when he sees me working over her.
“Get Adam,” I order. “She’s losing too much blood.”
“He can’t sew her up in here. You’ve got to get her to the chopper. When Salgado hears that somebody took out five of his men, the whole goddamn cartel will be on us.”
“Stay with me,” I say, covering her mouth with mine, and her chest rises with my respired breath.
“Kellan, we’ve got to go.”
Finally, she opens her eyes and the green halos that surround her dilated pupils gaze up at me. I wipe my mouth and she breathes, “Don’t...leave...me.”
“Kellan, we have to go now!”
“I’m not going to leave you,” I say, scooping her up in my arms.
“Adam!” I call as we exit the bunker, and he runs over to me when he sees the girl in my arms, which are covered
in her blood...and mine.
“We have to go!” Grant shouts from the cockpit.
“Come on,” Adam says, and I follow him to the chopper, leaving a trail of blood behind me.
He grabs his medical case and kneels on the floor of the small helicopter cabin. “Put her here.”
I lay her down and he quickly scans her bleeding stomach.
“Can you save her?”
“I don’t know.”
“She better not fucking die,” Grant shouts.
Adam ignores him and begins to work around her wound. He throws a cloth at me. “You’re bleeding. Wrap it up. I’ll look at it when I’m done with her.”
I wrap my arm and hold it against my chest to stop the bleeding.
Adam works on her for a while, before he finally closes her incision and snips off the last stitch. He looks spent.
“Think she’ll be okay?”
“I don’t know. There wasn’t much internal damage, but she lost a lot of blood. I’ve got antibiotics and morphine running through her drip. That’s the best I can do with what I’ve got.”
He leans back against the cabin wall and I put my bloodstained hand on his shoulder. “You did good.”
He nods to a stack of cloths and a bottle of rubbing alcohol. “I need to clean her up.”
I look at her bloodstained body. “I’ll do it. Rest.” I reach for one of the cloths and soak it with alcohol, then I gently rub it over her face, wiping the dirt from her cheeks and nose. She must have been in that bunker a couple of days—the tips of her fingernails are caked with dirt, and what looks like dried blood.
She fought. I hope she scratched the skin off that bastard’s back.
I keep cleaning her, moving the alcohol-soaked cloth over the small cuts on her neck and then her stomach, which is red up to her chest.
She squirms and lifts her hand to my arm, moaning and digging her nails into my skin. “Stop,” she whimpers, and struggles against the IV in her arm.
“Hold her down,” Adam says, grabbing a small glass vial out of his bag, but I don’t move. “Hold her down,” he says again, but I don’t want to hurt her, or scare her any worse.
I hold her face in front of mine. “Hey, it’s okay,” I say, looking into her watery eyes. “You’re safe now. You’re okay. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
She loosens her grip on my forearm and exhales a slow breath through her parted lips.
“Shhh...you’re okay,” I say again, and she closes her eyes.
“I didn’t want to give her too much morphine without knowing what she was drugged with,” Adam says, checking her pupils. “She’ll be out for a while now.”
I pull my shirt off and hand it to him. “Help me put this on her.” I reach behind her neck and lift her up while he pulls it down over her. Then we wrap her in a blanket.
He looks at my bloody arm. “Let me see.”
I turn my arm over and see a short gash on the inside of my bicep and another one on my ribcage.
“The bleeding stopped.” He holds my arm out. “They’re shallow wounds, but you’ll need a few stitches.” He eyes the fresh scratches on my forearm. “And some antibiotics.”
“Okay.” I inspect the area. Yeah, she fought.
Adam sews me up and covers the stitches. “A little Tylenol and you’ll be fine in a few days.” He drops his head back against the cabin wall and I slump beside him and stare at the girl, until my eyelids grow heavy and the sound of the noisy rotors disappears.
* * *
I watch the Costa Rican sun rise over the Caribbean Sea through an open window in the clinic. A warm breeze fills the room, blowing the mosquito net off the bed where Makayla is resting. She hasn’t woken up yet, but Adam said the morphine wouldn’t wear off until morning. I’ve been with her all night, just in case.
I pull a chair up next to the bed and inspect her injuries. There’s a dark purple bruise on her jaw. And there was a knife against her neck—I can tell by the lacerations there. She was definitely struggling. Her wrists are rubbed raw from the restraints that were tied around them.
Her eyes crack open and then close again.
“Makayla,” I say softly.
She opens her eyes again and looks at me, but I see the fear in them. “No”—she squirms back on the bed—“no!”
“It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Get away from me!” She scrambles out of the bed, but falls to the floor and lets out a bloodcurdling scream.
I quickly kneel beside her and scoop her up, but she struggles in my arms as I lay her back on the bed. “It’s okay, Makayla, you’re safe. I’m not going to hurt you.” I move the hair out of her face and look into her eyes. “You’re safe.”
She looks up at me, frightened, and clutches her stomach.
“I know it hurts.” I lift her hand away from her wound and place it by her side. “You need to lie still.”
The breath rushing in and out of her begins to settle as she gazes up at me. “H-How do you know my name?” she asks warily, grimacing over the pain.
“I’m a friend of Derek’s. He asked me to find you and keep you safe.”
She tugs at the bottom of the T-shirt so that it covers her thighs and she studies me carefully with confused eyes.
“I’m a friend, Makayla, I won’t hurt you.”
She looks around the room and her eyes fill with tears that roll down her cheeks.
“It’s okay,” I say softly, reaching for her hand. “You’re okay.” She doesn’t pull it away, so I give it a reassuring squeeze.
She looks up at me and says quietly, “They killed her.”
“Who?”
More tears leak onto her cheeks. “She was my friend.”
“You were alone,” I say gently, wondering if the drugs are still clouding her thoughts.
She closes her eyes and cries quietly.
I should get Mia. “Makayla, I’m going to go get a friend of mine. I think it would help to talk to her.” I stand up, but she grips my hand and gives me a pleading look.
“Please...don’t leave me.”
Persuaded by the fear in her eyes, I sit back down. “Okay. I won’t leave.”
I hold her hand while she cries, until she eventually falls back asleep.
Chapter 3
Makayla
I open and close my swollen eyes a few times, blinking until they adjust to the soft light that’s filtering through the mosquito netting around the small bed I’m lying in, and I see him standing by the window. I don’t know who he is, but I know that he’s safe.
I’m safe.
I inhale a deep breath and cry out when I feel the sharp pain emanating from my stomach. “Ahh.”
“Careful,” he says, pushing the netting out of the way. He leans over me. “Try not to move.” When he stands back up he towers over the bed. He’s well over six feet. His chest and shoulders are broad, and long, muscular arms hang by his sides.
He’s safe, I remind myself, trying to control the fear that’s wrapped around me like armor.
“I was just trying to breathe,” I squeak out.
“I’ll go get someone who can give you some more morphine.”
“No,” I say, afraid to be alone, “please don’t go.”
He sits down in a chair beside the bed and agrees. “Okay.” He runs his hand through his dark hair and over the light stubble that covers his flushed cheeks, seemingly conflicted over the decision. He leans forward on his elbows and the sunlight shining through the open window lights his turquoise eyes.
“You know Derek?”
“Yes. We’re old friends.”
“What’s your name?”
“Kellan.”
Kellan. I work hard to excavate the familiar name from memory, but my head is foggy.
“He sent you? To find me?”
“Yes.”
My eyes fill with tears of gratitude. Callie got my text.
“It’s okay,” he says, placing his hand on my arm, “
you’ve been through a lot.”
I consider my aching head, dry mouth, and the pain burning across my stomach, wondering exactly what I’ve been through.
“Do you remember what happened?” he asks perceptively. I’ve never been good at hiding my thoughts.
“The desert. I remember being in the desert, but I don’t know where.”
“The Sonoran Desert. In Mexico.”
A fresh wave of pain radiates from my stomach. “What happened?” I ask, putting my hand over the aching spot.
His face intensifies and his dark eyebrows draw together. “You were stabbed.”
I look down, panicked, and lift the large shirt I’m wearing to see a white gauze covering my lower abdomen. I’m not sure what’s more horrifying, that I was stabbed or that my underwear is completely red with what appears to be blood.
“You lost a lot of blood,” he explains, keeping his eyes on my face.
I pick at the edge of the gauze and reveal a nasty looking gash. The angled red line is covered with little black stitches that stretch two inches between my hip and my navel.
Kellan glances down at it momentarily, before returning his gaze to my face. “It looks better.”
I replace the gauze and lower my shirt, and try hard to remember what happened. After a few seconds, the sweet smell of incense fills my head and knots my stomach as I recall, “The cave...in the desert. That’s where they took me.”
“Yes.”
“How did you know I was there?”
“Once I knew who to look for, it wasn’t difficult to trace his vehicle.”
“Santiago Quintero?” I say, recalling the name that will forever be etched in my memory—even the drugs couldn’t erase it.
“Yes. Derek hoped he would lead me to you. Luckily, he did.”
“Who is he?”
“A drug dealer. A very dangerous one.”
A man with beady black eyes looms in the fog inside my mind, but I try to divert my thoughts away from the clouded memories of our time together. “Did Derek call the police?”
“Our government doesn’t have jurisdiction in Mexico. He thought he’d have a better chance of finding you using his own resources.”
“You?”
He nods. “He called in a favor from an old friend.”
“That’s a heck of a favor.”