by Becky Wicks
It wasn’t the crew.
Her heart leapt straight into her windpipe as she took them in. A group of guys—maybe seven or eight—olive-skinned and covered in black tattoos, some in black shirts, some in white, all studying what she was pretty certain was a dead body. They were speaking quickly amongst themselves, loudly in Spanish, and they hadn’t seen her.
Slowly, so as not to make a single branch or twig crack, she stepped backwards, never taking her eyes off them. That was when she saw a flash of metal: an AK-47 being brandished about wildly by a shirtless guy who looked and sounded angry about something.
Drug runners, she thought, trafficking between Colombia and Brazil, no doubt...or planning to. She was almost paralysed with fear. She couldn’t be certain that was what they were, but she couldn’t hang around to find out.
Somehow she forced herself to move, thankful for the rain now coming down even harder, silencing her footsteps. She found herself back in the clearing, but in a panic realised in horror that she couldn’t remember which way she’d come.
She cursed under her breath, hearing movement behind her. The group was getting closer.
Had they heard her?
Which way was the right way?
Feeling nauseous, Madeline started to run. In her hurry she dropped her water bottle, found the path, then ran even faster till her lungs began to burn and the branches slashed at her limbs like an evil army.
As she gasped for air in the suffocating heat she couldn’t for the life of her figure out where she was. The path looked the same as the one she’d walked in on, yet it was totally different. She was lost in the jungle.
Fear flooded her veins. The rain pummelled punishingly at her head, arms and legs. Thunder crashed above her and the bugs upped their symphony, as though trying to compete with the noise. She turned and ran back the way she’d come. At least she thought it was the way she’d come.
She couldn’t hear the voices any more, but then she couldn’t hear anything at all—nothing but the rain, and the wind, howling all around her like tortured spirits.
Tears of helplessness brimmed in her eyes. She heard Ryan’s voice in her head—the way he’d sounded back when he’d warned her: ‘The jungle has a way of luring people in and keeping them.’
No. No! How could she have been so stupid? She had to get out. She had to get back to the camp.
She picked up her pace, but in another second her sandal caught on something long and sharp and she fell hard to the ground, smacking her head. She barely had time to yelp or blink before blackness consumed her.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
‘WHERE’S MADELINE?’
Ryan couldn’t keep the question in any longer. He’d been back for over an hour and hadn’t seen her playing with the kids under the tree or anywhere else, like she usually was. The guitar was still in the dining room where they’d left it, seemingly untouched, which he found odd because she’d seemed pretty excited about playing it and starting to make up songs.
He’d gone for a swim in the lake the moment the rain had eased off, hoping she might be there, but she wasn’t.
‘I haven’t seen her since this morning,’ Maria told him, taking the thermometer from the mouth of the kid who was sitting on the table in front of her.
‘This morning?’
‘First thing. She was up at dawn, before the storm rolled in. Is she not in her tent?’
Ryan’s jaw started to pulse. He didn’t want to seem overly concerned but something didn’t feel right. He left the station and walked across the wet, muddy grass, sparkling with the remnants of the storm. It was gone four p.m. and it would be dark in a few short hours.
Reaching Madeline’s tent, he rapped on the canvas door. No reply.
Without hesitation he unzipped it and looked inside. Her sleeping bag was in a crumpled heap on the mattress. A can of DEET was resting beside it. He straightened up again, swiftly scanning the swaying treeline.
He saw Mark appearing from his own tent, and walked over. ‘Have you seen Madeline?’
‘No, sir, not since last night.’
‘Call everyone into the dining room, now.’ Ryan was already walking towards it quickly.
It didn’t take long for word to spread and for everyone on camp to gather in the enclosed space. All wore looks of concern, which unnerved him further. Jake, who’d been following him all day as they’d fixed up the man who’d been mauled by a caiman, was still rolling the camera, obviously sensing excitement in the air.
Ryan took off his baseball hat, dashed his hand through his hair as he tried to force his voice to stay controlled. ‘Has anyone here seen Madeline Savoia since this morning?’ he asked.
Silence.
He could see people looking around them in confusion. The way Mark was looking at Evan almost made him snap. Others were shaking their heads, looking at the floor.
He turned to Maria. ‘Maria, did she say anything about where she was going when she left you?’
Maria shrugged, looked helpless. ‘Not a lot...but I was busy. I told her the producer wanted to talk to her and—’
‘What did she say when you said that?’ he asked, hoping to God Madeline hadn’t freaked out and let any paranoia over their...situation...get the better of her.
‘Nothing, really, just that she was fine with it. She sounded perfectly normal—a little tired, maybe...’
‘Tired?’
‘She said she didn’t sleep much.’
Ryan rarely panicked, but he was panicking now. Madeline was exhausted and had obviously wandered off somewhere. That could only lead to bad things in the jungle. Maybe she’d been caught in the storm. Anything could have happened.
‘We’re splitting up and we’re going to find her,’ he said resolutely. ‘Evan, Mark—go back to the village. Take the sat phones. Maria, go with Pablo to the river, get on the boat and keep your eyes peeled. Take your sat phone, too—everyone take your sat phones...keep in touch...’
Ryan doled out responsibilities, then watched his people hurrying off two by two until he was the only one left—just him and Jake with the camera.
He grabbed some bananas, raced to his tent and lifted his pack, slinging it over his shoulders. ‘I’ll be right out,’ he called to Jake. ‘Actually, can you grab some more water and meet me back here?’
‘No problem.’
Jake turned back the way they’d come and Ryan took his moment to flee alone.
Anger, fear and dread propelled him forward as he set out on the path, fixing his phone to the belt of his khaki trousers. He’d been in this situation before, and he did not need a camera filming his every movement. He did not need anyone seeing anything they didn’t need to see, if that was what this was going to come to.
He hoped to hell it wasn’t.
Josephine’s face flashed to the forefront of his mind, bright and smiling, then pale and cold. He bit down hard on the inside of his cheek, fought to keep his breathing steady and his feet treading safely, quickly on the path.
This day wouldn’t end up like that one had—not if he had anything to do with it. It couldn’t. He couldn’t handle it again. He’d barely handled it before. And even now, with the faint glimmer of sunshine that was Madeline on the horizon, those demons were still dancing around him in the darkness, willing him to slip up or break.
He called her name. The air was thick, hot, suffocating.
Keeping tabs on his own whereabouts, he crossed the clearing. His phone buzzed and squawked. He could hear people talking over the radio. His crew were all out there, spread like a spider’s web between the trees. The village had their people out now, too, but no one had seen her yet.
He was just about to take another step when he paused in front of an object. He bent down, picked up a toothbrush. It was one of the same branded batch they’d brought with them for the kids. One t
hat Madeline would have had. He shoved it into a pocket.
A shape up ahead caught his eye next. He stopped in his tracks, waiting for it to move.
‘Madeline?’
He stepped closer cautiously, adrenaline pumping through him. It was a person—a woman, he realised with sudden nausea—lying still on the ground like a fallen log, rain-soaked and lifeless in an unnatural heap.
Ryan’s heart plunged as he hurried to her side. She was facing away from him, and he saw with utter horror the pool of blood spreading like a crimson lake from her stomach out onto the muddy, mossy ground.
He fell to his knees as his very soul seemed to splinter around him.
‘Madeline?’ A whisper now. His voice barely audible.
Long dark hair was splayed across the woman’s face, hiding her features, and he felt like throwing up. He put a hand to her cheek. Cold, clammy. She was gone. He swallowed the sob that rose in his throat. He hadn’t deserved her. He knew it. He never had.
He pushed the hair back from her face, ready to haul her into his arms and let grief consume him, but shock froze him as her features came into view. The rounded nose, the plump lips, the thick, bushy eyebrows.
It wasn’t Madeline.
This poor woman had been murdered. There was no doubt about that. But she wasn’t Madeline.
Ryan stood up quickly and almost stumbled as he reached for his penknife and readied himself to wield it against an attacker. He swiped at his tears, spun around, half expecting a Colombian drug runner to lunge in his direction. But all he could hear was the wind and the birds and the distant howl of a monkey.
With his eyes on the treeline he pulled his sat phone from his belt, radioed in his grim discovery, reading out the GPS location so the crew could come back for her and carried on, on his way, hope his motivation.
The light was fading and the wind was picking up again—like the rain. He knew another shower was on its way and prayed it wouldn’t be as bad as the last one. He’d changed course now and was only a few metres back from the river. This was far enough away so that Madeline would never be spotted by Maria and Pablo from the boat, but not so far... Madeline might have gone just a little off track and thought she was further away from camp than she really was.
He let out a silent prayer. The rain started pattering more heavily on his hat and Ryan struggled to keep it together.
‘Any luck?’ It was Mark on the radio.
‘Not yet,’ he replied, trying to sound optimistic. ‘She can’t have gone far.’
But he heard his own voice crack in despair.
It was happening all over again.
He was just about to sink to the ground when he saw her. He almost dropped his phone. She was huddled under a tree, arms wrapped around herself, her eyes closed.
‘Madeline!’
He was in front of her in a heartbeat, kneeling on the ground, letting the rain slam into him as he pulled his pack from his back, dropping it next to her.
‘Madeline, it’s me—look at me.’
He reached his hands to her face, hoping her cheeks wouldn’t be as cold as those of the lifeless lady he’d just touched. To his utter relief her eyes fluttered open just a little. There was blood on her head, trickling down her right cheek and onto his hands. She looked dazed.
‘What happened?’ he asked, scooting even closer to her, inspecting the damage. ‘Can you talk? Are you in pain?’
‘Ryan?’ Recognition flickered in her eyes before they flooded with tears. She reached out to him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders.
She could move, thank God. Her arms were weak but that hug, along with the sound of her voice, was everything he needed in that moment. He held her tight against him for a minute, swallowed more tears in private against her soft neck, then untangled her from him.
‘I don’t know what the hell you were thinking,’ he blurted, sweeping her matted hair behind her ears, scanning her eyes, hearing his own voice croak again. ‘Didn’t I tell you never to go anywhere alone out here? Maddy, you could’ve been killed! Didn’t I tell you...? Weren’t you listening?’
‘I’m sorry... I’m so sorry...’
‘I could have lost you, too.’
He held her face, pressed his lips to her forehead for a long moment, letting them burn into her skin, breathing in her life at the same time.
‘I didn’t know what I was going to find.’
‘Drug runners,’ she whispered, clutching his hand and wincing as she tried to move again. ‘I saw them. I think they killed someone, Ryan.’
‘I think you’re right about that. Now we need to get you cleaned up.’
It looked as though she’d fallen and hit her head at some point. She was covered in mud, too, and had probably dragged herself to the tree after her fall. She was clearly disorientated, and likely dehydrated.
He reached for his pack, pulled out a bottle of water and held it to her mouth. ‘You need to drink, Maddy,’ he said. ‘As much as you can.’
With her eyes closed she did as she was told. Remembering the sat phone, he announced that he’d found her, and told the crew his co-ordinates. As he was talking he noticed that the insect bites on her legs and arms had caused her limbs to swell. She’d obviously come out without DEET on again. Either that or it had been washed off.
He was amazed she wasn’t more hurt.
The rain was coming down hard again and Ryan knew it was going to be hell, trying to make it back to camp with her like this. He reached into his pack and pulled out the thin plastic sheet, stood and shook it out. It took him less than two minutes to hang it between three surrounding branches, creating a makeshift shelter. He pulled another sheet out and laid it on the ground, helped her onto it and sat close beside her.
At least they were dry, for now.
‘What’s that?’ she asked, watching him pull tincture from his pack, along with some swabs and gauze.
‘Iodine,’ he said, holding it up. ‘Here, let me look at you. You’re still bleeding.’
He placed two fingers under her chin and she balled his shirt in her fists against his chest as he swabbed at the cut on her head, then applied antiseptic.
She screwed up her face. ‘Stings,’ she said.
‘I’m not surprised. Did you pass out?’
‘For a bit, I think. I was trying to get away from them. I heard them behind me, then I got lost. I feel like such an idiot. I’m so sorry, Ryan.’
‘Not as sorry as I’d have been if anything worse had happened to you. You must have lost them, but there’s a dead woman not far from here. I think they left her there.’
He started to apply a patch to the wound, but Madeline pulled back, putting a hand over her mouth.
‘So they did kill someone?’
He nodded grimly. ‘I saw her. We’re retrieving the body.’
Her eyes were wide. ‘I saw them standing around her. I saw a gun.’
‘She was stabbed,’ he said, grateful again for the miraculous fact that the same fate hadn’t befallen her. He pulled a banana out of his pack. ‘Eat this—you must be starving.’
He swabbed at some of the blood on her arms and legs with a cloth. Thankfully most of it had come from her head and the rest of her was unharmed except for the bites.
‘We’ll wait the rain out, then we’ll get you back. Why did you walk off on your own?’
‘I thought I might be able to help with a case. I thought I heard you talking, but it wasn’t you. I can’t believe... That poor woman. Why would they do that?’
‘Any number of reasons. They make up their own rules out here.’
He pulled her to his side, wrapped an arm around her shoulders protectively as she ate and drank slowly, both of them listening to the rain. As the crickets chirped and the bats started swooping he felt the frantic thudding of his heart finally begin to
subside.
‘What happened with the guy who got attacked by the caiman?’ Madeline asked.
Ryan stretched his legs out on the sheet. ‘He wasn’t as lucky as you—lost most of one arm. Luckily he had a friend with him who was able to call for help when it happened.’
She grimaced.
‘We’re just skin and blood and bones in the jungle, I guess,’ he said, resting a cheek against her hair. ‘We’re all the same. We’re all just food in a chain. Moving targets.’
‘Terrifying, isn’t it?’ she said softly.
‘Terrifying.’
He tightened his arm around her small frame, banishing the thought from his mind that Madeline might have been the one mauled or eaten or shot.
Ryan hadn’t even known it was within him to feel so responsible, to feel so...anything about anyone, until today. The depth of his feelings now—the way they’d sprung upon him around this woman—was as terrifying as the jungle. But it also made him feel incredibly alive. More alive, perhaps, than he’d felt in five whole years.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MADELINE WATCHED THEM bringing the body of the murdered woman into the camp from her place on the bench in the dining room. Through the mesh of the walls she could make out Ryan, Jake and the producer, plus two volunteers carrying the stretcher across the grass.
They’d been informed it was a lady from another village, probably employed to traffic drugs up the river. She tore her eyes away as tears blurred her vision, pulling the blanket around her for comfort. Shock was sinking in now that she was finally safe.
She also felt impossibly idiotic.
She’d never been more relieved to see anyone in her whole life than she had when Ryan had found her under that tree. He’d been angry at first—that much she understood. She could hardly blame him. She’d gone against everything he’d told her when she’d stepped off that path and followed what she’d thought were her instincts.
She knew half of his anger was coming from a place of fear, though: fear of her being hurt. He’d shown her nothing but kindness ever since.